Third Day in Paris - Part One

This day was a big day. I went to the Louvre and then the Pantheon, so this will be split up accordingly. The Louvre is so huge, with so much art that it is physically impossible to see all in one day. Essentially, it is three big museums in one. It's bordering on the ridiculous, but I love it anyway. Notice what's behind the mob in one picture. Like a freaking rock star, I swear.

Second day in Paris

Day two started at the Catacombs. They were extremely eerie, and there were many times when it was hard to believe that I was surrounded by actual bones. After that I walked to the Galerie Lafayette, which for a shopping girl like me, was absolutely magical. I mean, there was a whole enormous floor devoted to shoes alone. I may or may not have spent six hours there... totally worth it. I've got a shot of the Place de Concord with the obelisk and the Eiffel Tower, which is where Marie Antoinette was beheaded via guillotine. There's also a shot down the street of our hotel from my balcony.

First Day in Paris

Alright, I will try and get all five days of our Paris excursion up today, so promises though. I didn't end up taking my laptop with me, so I had to wait to upload until I got back, which was about 11 p.m last night. The day we left, we went on the TGV which is the high speed rail in France, which was very fast. The first and second picture from the bottom are of the train station, with a professor in there and of a view of the mountains we passed on the way. First place we went to that you see here is the Cimitere de Pere Lachaise. This was absolutely massive, had the graves of many famous writers and painters and even Jim Morrison. I actually wasn't there for very long, as food was weighing heavily on the brain. After eating we went to the Eiffel Tower, which we ended up staying at until night, which is when we went up. Amazing view, needless to say.

Le Val

We didn't stay long in the actual city of Le Val, because we were supposed to meet a professor from the University of Nice. He took us on a hike up a mountain. No joke. I was pitiful. The view from up there was beautiful though, and he showed us some Rock Art from the Neolithic Period (from 4,000 years ago). That was neat, but slightly disappointing after our trek up there. It was raining too. I thought the best thing about that field trip was hearing the thunder. I was sooooo loud and it echoed off the mountains. It was amazing to listen to.

Random

Here are some random images that didn't make it up the first go-round.

On Saturday, I was lucky enough to catch a ride over to Bonnieux, which is a town across the valley from Lacoste. It's beautiful from here, and beautiful up-close as well. Like Lacoste, it's a very steep town. It's quite a bit larger.

I went to Roussin again over the weekend. We saw more of the ocre queries and walked around the town some. I had the best ever Lavender ice cream. It's really kind of weird, but once you get used to it, it's so amazing.

Cemetary and old Church

This place was extremely creepy! There were long lines of very old stone coffins that dated back to the Middle Ages lining the walkway up to the church. They were all empty, obviously. Then inside the church, there wasn't much in the way of windows so it was very dark. It was also emptied out so everything echoed like a cave, and it was cold and dank too. Needless to say, I didn't stay in there very long, but it was really cool.

Cloisters - Arles

Part of the church was the cloisters, where the monks would (or maybe still do, i don't know) live. Again, I'm sure I'll be visiting more than one of these, so I'll try and keep it interesting.

Church in Arles

There are lots of these old churches in France, and I'm sure I will be posting many pictures of them on here in the near future, so to save you from any boredom that you hopefully haven't experienced yet, I will only be posting things that made each church interesting. That way you only get the highlights of each and it doesn't seem like I'm showing you the same ones over and over again.