Hello,

I have not been home 24 hours yet and I am still a bit out of it as far as time is concerned, but I enjoyed myself a lot on this trip.   We got ourselves settled in  at the Hotel Atlantic and went of a Metro trip to  the center of Paris and walked to Notre Dame Cathedral.   It is much larger than one expects and all the carving in the stone is amazing as well

as a wonderful interior.  We ended up walking all the way around the building.    We ate dinner on the south bank of the Seine and enjoyed watching the tourists stroll by us in our outside cafe.    The second full day we got on board the train and went out of Paris to see Monet’s home.   This photo is of his garden pool.    There were so many colors and textures.  All the gardens  were so very beautiful with purple rose and lots of iris in bloom.  I took tones of photos and know that I will use some of them as jumping off places for new work.    You could not take any photos in the house, but it was  a grand  feast for the eye as well.

Then next day we went to the  antique  market.    This shot of the diving helmet is only one of the many wonderful items we looked at.  Jen is an a dealer and she knew some of the  booths we visited.  She was the only one who purchased anything, but it was like visiting a museum where one could get really close and even touch the displays.    Jen was also our French speaker and that made our visit so much easier!    She  is fearless about Paris and  willing to just take off in new directions so that we  tried areas of the city that even she,  in her seven years of travel there,  had never ventured into.    This wonderful sculpture was in the square where we  went underground for the metro every day at the St-Lazare station.  It also served as our marker when we came home in the evenings- a welcome sight that told us we were close to home.   Jen had enough confidence in us  to send us home on the Metro without her on the third day.

Went to the Grand Promade the next day  and started our walk to the Louvre with Nepolian’s  Egyptian Obelisque.       The visual feast of the Louvre is amazing.  We did see the Mona Lisa and spent the morning looking at paintings.  After lunch we walked many gallery’s full of marble statuary.  I thought this face was very lovely- but I have so many photos that again it was hard to choose just one to present.        We then went down to the Seine and took a boat curse.  We got off  walked up to the  Eiffel Tower  along the river enjoying the parks, the bridges  and the sun set along the way.     This shot is of Barb holding up one of the scuptures- even though I did  not hide the base at all.  It is a good shot of how happy we all felt about the weather and the experience.     Everywhere I looked there were textures and images that I just enjoyed.

It was 9:00 in the evening when I took this shot of the Eiffel   Tower with all the sparkling lights going off  at dusk.  It was beautiful and  great to watch.   I was so glad that we waited until evening to see this  and did not visit the tower earlier.

We went to  visit one of the biggest and oldest cemeteries in Paris the next day- Cimetier Du Pere Lachaise.    The stone work there was wonderful too.   Every bit of land was packed with muslims.   They represented  about 250 years of different types of grave types used  in Paris.  I was espically  fasinated by the ceramic wreaths.     There were many types of flowers represented from roses and poppies to violets.  The ceramic work was so very thin as these roses show.  Many flowers showed the effects of pollution and were black- but that could be rubbed off. We only experienced one day of rain on our trip- that was on  Tuesday before we came home.    We spent that day shopping at all the stores on Avenue De Champs and Checking out the Arc de Triomphe.   It is having some work done on the top so I cut that off in this photo.  Again wonderful stone work  here.

Every day we walked the staircase in our hotel. We were on the fourth floor and I just loved looking down.    We decided we liked the back stairs the most as the wood  did not seem to be as worn as the front stair.    I did take my pedometer and we counted the steps each day.  They were all well beyond 10,000  and one day we did almost  15,000.     I loved all the different roof lines and doorways.    It was a very enjoyable trip and I have lots of great memories as well as a ton of photos.

Hugs

Carol