We also had an amazing encounter in the Louvre: Jonathan spotted baseball great Prince Fielder, a 28-year old power hitter who has played for the Detroit Tigers for about a year (he signed a $214 million contract with them, beating out the Mariners). He batted .313 in 2012 and has 260 home runs. A bunch of the boys had photos with him in front of the French David paintings (if you've been to the Louvre, it is in the room where Napoleon is crowning his wife Josephine). I'll try to get some of them up on the blog. I know that Jon, Randall, and (I think) Thomas got photos, which are now on Facebook.
The Musee de Cluny is a medieval museum, and the place where Mary Tudor (the sister of Henry VIII) lived for a few months in 1514 when she was planning to marry French King Louis XII. While she was there at Hotel Cluny, Anne Boleyn was her handmaiden. Mary did marry Louis XII and was crowned queen in the Fall of 1514; however, soon after the 52-year old king died (some say of marital exertion!), and after several months of seclusion in Cluny (to make sure that she was not pregnant), Mary Tudor returned to England, where she married her true love, Charles Brandon.
In this old-manner-and-abbey-turned-museum, we saw medieval armor and weapons, chests, tables, devotional items, statues, and an absolutely amazing collection of tapestries, culminating in a series involving unicorns and the 6 senses. (In the middle ages, thought or the mind was considered a sense too.) Here are some photos. Thomas is posing next to some of the original medieval heads that were on the walls of Notre Dame, until angry revolutionaries toppled them off...
After a full day (9:00 to 4:30) of scouting and thinking about the treasures inside Paris's museums, we hit the streets for exploring outside. I walking from the Musee de Cluny in the Latin Quarter to Notre Dame, then along the Seine, to the Louvre, through the Jardin des Tuileries (gardens), the place de la Concorde, the grand promenade to the Champs-Elysees, and then finished at the Arc de Triomphe (where I hopped on the Metro). This was an impossibly long distance for me to walk after our long day, but it provided excellent photos as the sun set, a few of which can be seen here:
OK--that was me. But while I was strolling around, a group of ten adventurous Tudors went to the Eiffel Tower for sunset, since it was a beautiful day. Here is the photo that Alex sent me!
French Film (sort of)
The final event for the evening for Luke, Randall, and I was to see Le Hobbit in a local movie theatre. We became intrigued by the posters around town and wanted to see the Hobbit with French sub-titles, so popped into a local movie theatre and watched the film from 9pm to midnight. If you must know, Bilbo Baggins is called "Bilbon Sacquet" in the French version. A "sacquet" is a little sack, I believe...
Tomorrow, we drive outside of Paris to visit a great castle of Francis I and later kings--Chateau Fontainebleau...
Mike H.
No comments:
Post a Comment