2004 Paris

A small pond near the Eiffel Tower

No it is not two pictures...

The bridge across from the Eiffel Tower was lined on both sides with guys selling mini-Eiffel Towers. Each had about a 100 foot strip of the bridge with a collection of towers spread out on a piece of cardboard. I wonder how many of these things are confiscated as weapons at the airport!

It is hard to appreciate just how large this structure is... especially since we are conditioned by the King's Island tower. Picture the KI tower next to this and the top would only come up about 1/3 of the way on the real one.

The obligatory "I was there" shot...

One of many stained glass windows in Notre Dame.

We were walking heading towards a crepe stand when we heard a piano playing. Wanting to stand out from the standard instruments typically used by the street performers, this fellow put a piano in the back of his van and would just pull up to the curb, slide the door open, and start playing.

A new weakness for me... crepes! Like an extremely thin, large pancake wrapped around your choice of fillings. The hardest part is staying "sticky stuff free" while eating. I did good with my first one but must have got lucky... subsequent ones required a water cleanup.

We stopped at a Puegot dealership that had a collection of wild cars.

The Louvre pyramid. We went back 3 times at night to get an outside shot of it lit up but never had any luck. They must not turn the lights on except for special events.

I was prepared for the Louvre to be big but it is hard to believe just how big this place really is. We did the "must see sights" (Mona Lisa, Venus, crown jewels, etc) and whatever we could see on the way to them. By the time you factor in getting mixed up on where we were, I think we walked through 1/2 to 3/4 of it, pausing to look at things that interested us. You would have to spend days in here to really take it all in.

The "small" inner courtyard at the Louvre.

Jeff's obligatory "I was there" shot...

There was an entire room with the walls carved and sculpted out of what appeared to be sandstone. This is very small area (the fruits were about life size).

Items waiting to be put on display I guess...

I've never totally understood the hoopla about the Mona Lisa... but there was a nice line of people waiting for the chance to see it up close.

I personally found a number of other paintings to be more interesting than the Mona Lisa... like this one - a painting of many paintings and sculptures.

One room had nothing but back-lit painted glass, like this one. The detail and shading was amazing.

The center section of the previous image (this was just cropped out, I should have taken a close up to really get the subtle details captured).

The Louvre courtyard.

One (big) hall was dedicated to nothing but large paintings. Gina noticed that the subjects are probably life size.

Chateau de Versailles

Although it was cloudy/raining most of the time we where there, the sun did peek out (and about 30 minutes later it the rain was pouring down).

The gardens behind Versailles... yes the reflecting pool goes *way* off into the distance.

The chapel in Versailles.