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First stop was
Musée Rodin. But after that, we tried to find new things
that we haven't seen on other trips.
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What can I say about
this photo?
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The Metro - cheap,
fast and smart, plus there are regularly entertainers in the
cars with you, earning a little money.
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My first time to
see Musée d'Orsay. Amazing!
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The Dance,
by Jean-Baptiste Carpeaux.
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Sainte Chapelle
- completed in 1248 by Louis IX (the only French king to be
canonized), to hold the holy relics he brought back from the
Crusades, including the alleged Crown of Thorns and a piece
of the True Cross.
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It's considered
the most beautiful church in Paris. Built to resemble a reliquary,
stories from the Bible are depicted in the stained-glass walls.
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Ron loves these
eight female reliefs, so we went looking for them this trip.
We found them here at the Fontaine des Innocents - Paris'
only Renaissance fountain, from 1547. Doesn't he look happy
about it?
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The Panthéon.
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A re-creation of
Jean Foucault's experiment here in 1851, which proved his
earth's rotation theory.
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Emile Zola's tomb.
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The view at the
top.
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Saint Sulpice -
begun in 1646, it took 134 years to build.
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The Astrological
Gnomon in Saint Sulpice - the obelisk and brass line mark
the "Zero Meridian Line" of Paris.
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Jacob Wrestling
with the Angel, by Delacroix.
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Musée du
Louvre.
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Winged Victory of
Samothrace - got this one at home, a 10" bronze version.
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Pyramide Inversée.
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A typical café
in the area of our hotel, on the border between the Marais
and the Bastille.
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Le Procope - this
is the oldest café in Paris, where Voltaire, Hugo,
Balzac and Zola hung out.
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Montmartre - this
colorful café is named for Francisque Poulbot.
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In the mid-18th
century, Montmartre included 50,000 acres of vineyards. Poulbot
is revered for having revived this small section of vineyard
in 1933. Each October, the residents of Montmartre celebrate
a harvest festival, and the few hundred bottles of wine are
sold for charity.
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This peaceful place
is the garden of Musée de Montmartre. Only two other
people showed up in the two hours we were here - it's one
of the special places most tourists don't discover.
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This little tucked-away
café, Au Lapin Agile, is also often missed by tourists.
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Poets Apollinaire
and Verlaine hung out here. Picasso paid his tab with one
of his Harlequin paintings. And Renoir waited tables!
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Back on Place du
Tertre, the tourists are packed, and so are the artists.
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This is Moulin de
la Galette.
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There used to be
more than thirty windmills on Montmartre - Galette was a favorite
of artists and shows up in many paintings by Van Gogh and
Renoir.
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Guess who lived
on the third floor of this building at 54 Rue Lepic.
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Here I am holding
onto his door handle - one of my best moments in Europe.
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Montmartre and Sacré
Coeur are our favorites. The view of the city is wonderful.
We made the climb up one afternoon.
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And we came up again
our last evening. We have a tradition now of walking up Rue
des Martyrs, buying food and a bottle of wine along the way,
and having an evening picnic on a bench at the foot of the
steps of Sacré Coeur. We watch the sun go down and
the lights of the city come up.
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And of course, what's
a final night in Paris without taking the Metro over to the
the Eiffel Tower? What an incredible piece of architecture
- it never ceases to amaze. We had so much fun the whole trip,
and especially this last evening!
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