Paris Day Two- Saturday, January 30th 2010
Today was again, perhaps one of the best days of my life. We woke up at 9, got ready and headed for The Palace of Versailles. We had to buy a more expensive metro pass because it was about 45 minutes away. Colin, Bryce, and me slept the whole way there.
The Palace of Versailles and the gardens of Versailles
The Palace of Versailles is located 16 miles SW of Paris- built for King Louis XIV in 1624. The entire site of Versailles is bigger than modern day Paris itself, and the island of Manhattan. More than 36,000 people were involved in the construction of the palace- and the country of France almost went broke because of the project. The construction of the palace cost equivalent to $2 billion dollars- which is a lot in the 17th century. The famous hall of mirrors contains 17 chandeliers and 26 smaller ones and over 1000 candles. The chandeliers are made of solid silver. Taking over 27 years to constuct, Versailles used to be the king’s residence and the place for welcoming official foreign visitors along with growing diplomatic relations with other nations. It was the center of prosperity of France in that period. It is the place representing the splendor of high-class French art to the world. It is praised to be one of the Seven Wonders of modern world. The UNESCO selected the Palace of Versailles to be a World Heritage in 1979. It is presently the Museum on the History of France. Many consider Versailles to be the most beautiful palaces of the world.
The palace is truly stunning- every room and gallery had something new- and it had over 1000 portraits of King Louis XIV of france- riding horses, posing in his palace, in the heavens, with gods, and at war. Its hard to believe that one palace was devoted to one person (of course many kings lived in the palace) and that the entire palace was constructed of high grade marbles. Like the Louvre, this was by far when of the largest buildings I’ve ever been to- by far the biggest palace.
After we walked through the palace we walked outside to the gardens of Versailles. The gardens extended for miles- composed of the a spectacular landscape extending into the horizon- lakes, trees, a fountains, and vegetation made up the landscape. It was definitely a sight to remember. Professor Frederick would be proud of me if he found out that I visited the gardens of Versailles. We went out into the forest of the garden- we found an open field where we ran around for a while, away from the tourists and commotion, made a couple videos, and took pictures of ourselves pretending to be a statue on stone podiums that were located throughout the gardens. It was a lot of fun! Colin didn’t want to leave, but we had to keep going and go see the Pompidou Museum!
The Pompidou Museum
After we left Versailles we headed over to the Pompidou Centre, which is one of my favorite buildings. Designed by Italian architect Renzo Piano and constructed from 1971-1977, the building is designed in the style of high-tech architecture. It has the largest modern art collection in all of Europe. The New York Times noted that the design of the Centre "turned the architecture world upside down" and that "Mr. Rogers (british architect working with Piano) earned a reputation as a high-tech iconoclast with the completion of the 1977 Pompidou Centre, with its exposed skeleton of brightly colored tubes for mechanical systems. The Pritzker jury said the Pompidou “revolutionized museums, transforming what had once been elite monuments into popular places of social and cultural exchange, woven into the heart of the city.
The modern art collection was very interesting- chairs, paintings, sculptures, videos, pictures, and tables could be found throughout the museum all in various styles of modern art. I found some of the themes to be very weird- some of the videos were crazy, and anyone who has ever been their knows what im talking about. We went to the top of the Centre and took pictures of Paris just before nighttime. Later on, we got pictures of the museum from outside at night when it was light up (very cool!). What I like most about the Pompidou Centre is the way Piano directed circulation. In order to get to the top-most floors where the galleries were, you had to go up a series of escalators that ran up the façade of the building- which were glass tubes- meaning you were visible from the outside. So people looking at the building were able to see the circulation and the mechanical systems of the building- instead of the buildings façade acting as an envelope, it acted as an exposure to all the technical and mechanical systems that make a uilding function.
The Eiffel Tower
The Eiffel Tower- the largest building in Paris, engineered and named after Gustave Eiffel for the 1889 World’s Fair. The iron lattice tower located on the Champ de Mars in Paris has become a global icon of France and is one of the most recognizable structures in the world. The tower is 324 m tall, or 1,063 feet- the same height as an 81 story building. It was the tallest structure in the world after its completion until 1930 when the Chrysler Building in NYC was completed.
We visited the Eiffel tower tonight- we had to take the metro there after the Pompidou. At night, they light up the tower- at one point it sparkles with hundreds of white strobe lights- very cool! The Eiffel tower is just so massive and I can only imagine how Eiffel was able to design a tower so tall in the 19th century- when large commercial cranes were absent from building design. We took a lot of pictures in front of the tower and went under it as well- by this time you couldn’t go up the tower, it was pretty late.
After we saw the Eiffel Tower we decided to go to one fancy restaurant in Paris before we left- so we found a restaurant in Chatalet called the Chatalet Restaurant actually. We got some very fine wine and I got marinated chicken on a skew, rice, and for dessert: a caramel apple on tart dessert with caramel syrup. Lets just say that it was very delicious! Of course it better be, because it cost 30 euros. After we left the Chatalet Colin and I went to a club called “CAB” which is the most popular club in Paris- located UNDER the louver. It was very classy and packed with probably over a thousand people. It had plenty of rooms, open to one another- dimly lit with couches and tables; about 5-6 dance floors and a very good DJ. I loved how they play American music in Europe and all the Europeans love it. They go crazy over music from Britney Spears and Lady Gaga. Drinks were way too expensive- a beer was 15 euros. I went the whole night only paying the cover charge (20) and coat check, and it was well worth it- we were their until 4:30 in the morning and people were still being let in! The club didn’t close until 6- even walking home we found many people still out. We tried to get a taxi, but we didn’t have any luck. Out of all the cars driving, about half were taxis, and not one of them stopped for us when we tried to wave them down- so we had to walk an hour and a half back to the hotel. Ohh well, at least we saved money! On the way back I found a street vendor selling crepe for 2.50 euros so of course I got some, I was starving. Allow me to emphasize again that I love crepe- its so good! Bryce and I fly back to Florence tomorrow so we have one more afternoon in Paris before we have to leave… I don’t want to leave this place.
No comments:
Post a Comment