The Louvre

So I mentioned before that the Louvre deserves its own post, so here goes. When we were on our walking tour I had noticed all of the massive old buildings that were lining one side of the river. I did not, however, realize that the majority of what I was looking at was actually the same building. We came to the outside of the museum and I still wasn't aware of its size; we then walked into a courtyard and it became a bit more apparent that this was no ordinary structure. However, after walking through this courtyard and coming to the main plaza of the Louvre, my breathe was absolutely taken away. I could not comprehend the sheer size of the building and am still in awe by not only the massiveness but also the incredible detail that permeates every facet of the former palace. I did a quick comparison (thank you Google Earth) to show just how large it is - in the picture below, I overlaid a satellite image of Invesco Stadium on the main plaza, which will hopefully give some perspective on size.

The primary entrance (the highly disputed glass pyramid) was packed when we arrived, but luckily we had heard of another place, called the Lion's Entrance, which fewer people know of.

It was great going to that door, because there was literally no line and we were able to get into the museum in a matter of minutes. After checking our bags we began to wander and immediately realized why a map is essential. Within minutes we had already become lost (immersed, yes, but still impressively lost) in an overwhelming selection of art.

The museum itself is a masterful work of art. Over the centuries the various kings and queens have built new rooms, wings, and gardens, which today comes together to in an incredibly ornate and surprisingly cohesive way. On every ceiling there are very detailed murals, and where any of the archways meet there can usually be found some interesting sculpture. I had never been in such a museum before - priceless pieces line the walls of massive, soaring hallways, which I can not possibly imagine actually once being a residence. A short picture series may be the best description.

Looking ahead:

Looking up:

Looking out:

And looking at:

After a bit of trekking, we finally found one of the Louvre's most famous residents, the Mona Lisa herself. It's pretty surreal to see something which has been so well known to so many people in so many places across the globe. I had heard so many people say how disappointing the piece was; however, I was incredibly pleased to find it was everything I had hope for. Small, yes. Detailed, yes. Surreal, absolutely.

I really could not take my eyes off this and so many other pieces, and even after hours of wandering we still had seen only a small portion of the treasures the Louvre contains. Currently, there are over 35,000 pieces on display, with an even greater number being stored and period cycled into exhibits. The Louvre is just so fascinating to me because it has such a rich and interesting history. One of the most surprising things to me was that below the museum lies the foundation of an unfinished castle. It was so strange to walk into the basement and suddenly be standing in a mote staring at the outer wall of what would have been a massive castle!

Oh, and there is obviously plenty of attention given to the museum thanks to Dan Brown. I was assured by plenty of Parisians that everything in those books is false, but it was still really fantastic to see so many of the sights he references. So, one of the Rose Line markers running throughout Paris and to the heart of the Louvre:

Walking Around

On Saturday we got up and went toward downtown Paris where we were supposed to meet a guide for a walking tour of the city. Since we had over an hour before it started, we took the chance to sit outside at a cafe and try some of the food and coffee. Both were amazing - the bread there was incredible and the coffee is definitely some of the best I've had. I had a plate with bread covered in ham and melted cheese that had a salad on the side, while Ken and Sara tried out some baguettes with different cheeses on them. It was a great way to relax and it was so fun watching people walk by. We were sitting across from a fountain that marks the beginning of the Roman quarter - so named because it's one of the oldest parts of the city originally occupied by its namesake.

In the picture above, Gabriel is dealing the final blow to Lucifer before banishing him to hell. The creatures in front were half-lion, half-dragon and the sculpting was amazingly detailed.

We soon started our tour and began walking toward the river, which in my opinion is one of the most beautiful parts of the city. Boats drifted along under the countless bridges spanning the Seine and we walked along the water for a while, during which time our guide talked about French history and pointed toward a building with bullet holes at the top - some of the very few marks left on Paris during WWII.

In the background below, Notre Dame overlooks the river before it.

We soon came to a park where Louis IV often spent time. By the park was a building with elaborate heads carved into the top, each of which represents a Templar knight. As we stood on the steps, our guide told us it was in that spot that their leader had once been burned at the stake and with his dying words cursed the then king and pope, who both died within the year. Since the place was considered haunted, Louis often went there to meet up with the numerous women he was having affairs with. His wife, Marguerite, was having similar affairs with two lovers of her own, but when the king found out about the men he had them skinned alive. (Yet he was still called "good king Henry".)

On top of the wall was a large statue of Henry IV. While looking at it, our guide continued his story by saying that after surviving 18 assassination attempts, the king was finally killed by François Ravaillac, who stabbed him three times in the heart. An article online best describes how he was punished for regicide: "Before being drawn and quartered... he was scalded with burning sulphur, molten lead and boiling oil and resin, his flesh then being torn by pincers." Our guide said that the only thing left of Ravaillac was a shirt soaked in blood.

We crossed another bridge and ended up where I had been looking forward to going the most: the Louvre. An entire other post is necessary to describe this building; all I can say briefly is that it is magnificent. Massive, ornate, and full of some of the most beautiful treasures in the world, the Louvre was one of my favorite sights. Across from it we saw one of Paris's famous American Cathedral, where not only kings have been married, but also Desperate Housewife Eva Longoria. (So you know it's got to be good, haha.) After so much of the German architecture, it was fun to see some new styles and more of the Gothic theme appearing.

We walked through the plazas of the Louvre and into the city on the other side, where we took a short break to enjoy something very Parisian: more McDonald's. (Hey, the city was really expensive and cheap food with plenty of calories is absurdly appealing.) The wealth in that area was pretty apparent, as evidenced by the Rolls Royce parked casually outside a restaurant.

After an awesome lunch, we continued walking and ended up in the parks that lie in front of the Louvre. I say park very loosely, since they might as well be considered forests. Apparently the area was originally used for smelting ore, but Marie Antoinette got sick of looking at the poor people working and had it turned into the lavish gardens that still remain.

There were so many statues, gardens, and meticulously groomed trees that the parks were slightly overwhelming. When we rounded a corner, ahead was a huge obelisk which seemed very out of place. This is the place where the guillotine once sat that took so many lives during the French Revolution, and today is marked by the massive 6 thousand year old egyptian monument.

Some other interesting sights in the area included the hotel where winners of the Tour de France stay, fountains which were placed throughout the city to provide fresh water when it used to be hard to find, and the Arch de Triumph.

Getting to a Paris hotel was not easy

I have a new city on my favorites list. This weekend two friends and I got a ride on the Mitfahrgelgenheit with two Germans, living in Aachen, who only spoke French and German. They picked us up in a nice little VW car, which became increasingly more...cozy as we drove the four hours to Paris. It was a fun drive, amplified by the fact that the couple was sitting up front singing along to practically every song that came on, which included rock, hip-hop, and my personal favorite, Britney Spears. (Think, "hit me baby one more time" said with a thick accent.) Anyway, it took pretty much exactly 4 hours to get there and at first I was actually not at all impressed. The outskirts of the city were very industrial and unremarkable and we passed by factories and apartments that were exactly opposite of the "city of love" image. They were really nice and offered to take us to our hostel, so they put in in their GPS and started driving. I don't know if it was because the navigation system was shifty or the place was just impossible to find, but finally another 4 hours after getting into the city, getting stuck in stop and go traffic, and looping around a few times we offered to just jump out and take the metro.

Luckily, McDonald's is ubiquitous and cheap, so we were able to ease the starvation we'd built up over the preceding 8 hours of travel. I thought the French McDonald's menu was really funny - since Europe is on the metric system all of the "quarter pounders", etc, are called things like "royals", there were various desserts such as cakes and tarts that I had never imagined seeing in a fast food restaurant, and on the drink menu were beer and wine! Definitely different than in the States.

We jumped on the metro which was impossibly confusing at first, but finally managed to figure it out and realized it was pretty efficient. Another bout of traveling and we got to our hotel, which ended up being in what I like to think of as the Brooklyn of Paris. (Google maps deceived me, but at least it was really cheap.) Our room was actually way nicer than anything we would have gotten in a hostel in the city, complete with two twin beds and a bathroom crammed into a little room that overlooked a soccer field and, in the distance, some of the Paris skyline.

It was getting to be evening, so we headed back into the city in hopes of seeing the Eiffel tower at night. After a few transfers we climbed out of the station and the first thing we saw was the top of the tower lit up behind some trees. It was so beautiful! I had always assumed it was a large structure, but I had no idea it would be as massive and elaborate as it was.

We kept walking until we got right under the base. The entire park under the tower is beautiful - there are lakes, grass, and plenty of places to lie around and hang out. When we were standing right under the base thousands of lights suddenly made the entire tower start to glitter. This went on for about five minutes and we later realized that it marks the beginning of each hour.

It was too late to buy tickets to the top, so instead we just hung out in the park below, watching people and the lights above. Finally, because of both exhaustion and the trains stopping we headed back to the hostel, where a grumpy night clerk let us in and we were able to get a bit of rest.

A Short Trip to the Beach

Since we were all exhausted from the previous day in Hamburg, we ended up sleeping pretty late and didn't have breakfast until around noon. After cleaning up a bit, Arne took me to a great beach out toward the lighthouse where the sea and harbor start to meet. We walked along for a bit and check out some of the stuff in the water, and after a bit I came across a squishy blob. I asked what it was and it turned out to be a jelly fish. I kept nearly stepping on ones in the water and that had washed up on the beach, and as I was warily looking at it, Arne picked it up and threw the whole huge blob at me! Only afterward did he explain they're not poisonous, but even then it was weird to hold and I threw mine back in the water pretty quickly.

It was really beautiful and the wind was coming from a slightly different direction than the previous day so some of the larger ships had their sails up. It was great to just walk along and hang out on the beach for a bit, especially since they're pretty sparse at home in the middle of the States.

After a short time we had to head back and grab our things. Arne arrange a ride for us on the "Mitfahrgelegenheit", which is essentially hitchhiking that you pay people for. It's actually a really cool system and way cheaper than using the trains. Basically you go to a website online where you find people who are going where you want to go, then you ride with them and pay something like 5 euro per hundred kilometers. We met our ride at the main station and I was immediately amused. It turned out to be two sort of hippie surfers with an old Mercedes MB1000 camper van. Arne and I got a sweet couch in the back, complete with a table and the soothing sounds of some kind of weird Bob Marley-Enya-beach-Indian-flute hybrid sort of music. The van was pretty slow and there was more construction so it took a while to get to Köln where they were going to drop us off, but we got there earlier than expected and were able to once again have McDonald's in the Hauptbahnhof. Our hunger satisfied, we sat on the platform for a bit, jumped on our train, then finally got in around 1. Definitely a lot of transit time, but it was an awesome weekend.

Hamburg!

Saturday afternoon Arne and I rode to Hamburg with his mom and sister, since they were heading toward that area anyway. It took a while to get there because there was construction on the autobahn, but they dropped us off around 4 in the afternoon which gave a lot of time to explore the city. We started off by taking a bus to a different train station (the one that we were at was closed and being worked on) where we jumped on a train to head toward the harbor area in Hamburg. I really couldn't get enough of the water everywhere there, it was so beautiful to be riding by train and passing over channels and old narrow streets. The transportation system was amazingly efficient and combined busses and trains that often ran in subway tunnels.

When we stepped out of the station we were right on the water by an old ship that had been docked and converted into a restaurant. I think it was a perfect day for walking around, and Hamburg is a beautiful city to explore. We went along the waterfront for a while and then crossed a bridge into one of the new areas of the city that's being developed. There, a massive old building where ships used to unload cargo is being converted into the new Hamburg opera house, which the city hopes will rival the fame of Sydney. I pulled this picture from Google of what it is supposed to look like when completed:

Right now only the lower portion is completed and the entire upper section is still being built. The building is massive already, so when they more than double the size it will certainly be impressive. Some of the pictures of the initial construction work are incredible, in particular there was one where one of the cranes was lifting an entire backhoe into the center of the building since it couldn't be gotten in there any other way. When complete, there are supposed to be three separate concert halls inside, and I believe the sign said that the entire theme is based on the water of the harbor.

The picture above is pretty awesome because it demonstrates so many of the different elements I saw in Hamburg. The red ship is an old fireboat that also has a lighthouse built into the top so that it could keep ships away from dangerous areas where an actual lighthouse couldn't be built. In the background on the left are some of the buildings that have recently been constructed, as well as the in-progress opera house which is the brick building toward the middle with blue at the top. At the right in the distance are the gigantic cranes that surround the shipping yards, where thousands of container boxes of freight are loaded onto ships to be sent all over the world.

I loved the water that was everywhere while we were walking around. Channels still run through buildings which are now apartments, offices, etc, but which were originally used so ships could pull up and unload freight directly into the buildings, where it would be sold immediately on the other side.

As walked over a bridge, Arne stopped and had me look over toward the black cathedral tower in the distance. I had assumed it was really old; however, half the reason it is black is from smoke during the second world war. Hamburg was completely destroyed by the Royal Airforce and the Americans during this time, which is why even today they are still building new and beautiful buildings. It's amazing to me though how quickly they've been able to build so much. Apparently most of the buildings that really define the city today weren't built until the last 30 years or so. We continued walking and got to the base of the cathedral tower, where the remains of what must once have been a massive building still stand. Apparently after the war the city considered rebuilding it, but instead they decided to let it remain as it was as a reminder to never have such horrible war again.

They did, however, do something really cool with the tower. It is the tallest structure in Hamburg and so they built an elevator which goes to nearly to the top, almost 70 meters, and provides a view of the entire city below. When we got in the elevator there were only two button, "0m" and "70m". It flew up threw the tower, which was pretty awesome because we went from the ground floor with its soaring ceilings up through a whole series of levels, some dim with pigeons flitting around and some really bright with sweeping views. When we got to the top we were provided with a great view of the city and could see everything out toward the harbor and on in toward the town hall. There were some pretty fantastic gargoyles perched and diving from the tower and we spent quite a bit of time reading some of the information about the war and Hamburg.

I thought it was pretty amazing to see the picture from immediately after the city had been bombed and then compare it was the same view today. The development is just mind blowing. Also, a sign mentioned that the reason many of the towers still stand is because the pilots would use them for beacons and so purposefully leave them intact.

We headed on toward the Rathaus (German for city hall) and also another sort of capital building from which the state is governed. There was a market going on in the square, but we didn't wander around it for long because we were starved. I have come to realize that McDonald's is one of America's proudest creations, and even in Europe you can get cheap happy meals and order things from the Euro Menu, which is exactly the same as the dollar menu only instead of mayonnaise a lot of the sandwiches have slightly funky sauces.

After getting some food we jumped on the subway to go toward the student area of the city. Since Hamburg used to be many smaller cities, there are actually several city centers and the area we went to was one of them - a sort of liberal, alternative, young, and really fun place to walk around. There was this great old building that the government apparently tried to tear down but the people there protested and saved it. The entire thing is covered in graffiti, protests, and just random stuff.

Another great thing I saw, especially considering our preceding dining choice, was this pole that had messages of peace on it, but also on the top a fat little man throwing a McDonald's paper into the trash with an "I'm lovin' it" slogan printed below!

It was really fun to just sit, talk, and watch the people go by in this area, because there were definitely some interesting ones. We hung out for a while and wandered around a bit till it got closer to evening, then jumped on a subway and went back toward the harbor where Arne took me to one of his favorite spots where we could sit on the dock and drink a beer while the sun set. Across the water was "Der König der Löwen" - The Lion King musical theatre which has been putting on elaborate performances for years and apparently sells out every time. The evening was beautiful and it was a great combination with the city in the background the the water in the front.

We eventually got up and started wandering back into the city, where Arne was excited to show me one of Germany's most unique attractions: the Reeperbahn of Hamburg. This is the red light district and I didn't really know what to expect. When we got there, it was amazingly fun and just as packed with people as the Kieler Woche had been the night before. We walked by sex shops, porn stores, prostitutes in the windows, and what must be the most interesting police station in the world right in the middle of all of it. Saturday also happened to be a Harley Davidson fest, so bikers were streaming through the streets and people were packed in all around watching. Arne and I each got a Döner, which is a really popular sort of fast food over here that reminded me of a pita but with way more stuff crammed inside, and just watched everything. Every walk of life passed us, everything from young punks to college students to flocks of Asian tourists to elderly couples looking on and laughing. I really like the more fun and frivolous European attitude toward sex. Even when I'm shopping I notice that magazines have naked models on them and nobody minds because they're all pretty open about it.

Anyway, apparently the Reeperbahn is also where the Beatles played before they became famous, so we went by "Grosse Freiheit 36" which advertises them pretty heavily.

After a bit more time there, we had to jump on the subway to catch our ride back to Kiel. As we were getting out of the car an hour or two later, Arne's mom asked, "Well, do you two want to head back down to the harbor?". She meant did we want to go down to the party like the night before. I told her no and went to bed - I'd already had an awesome day!