Paris in the Springtime

It's totally cliché and unoriginal but we actually had an awesome time in Paris. The city is incroyable with so much to see and do that I'm sure we'll be back again and again.

The first stop was the Arc de Triomph. If you don't know, the monument honours and remembers those who fought for France in every war since the French Revolutionary Wars. The bottom right picture shows the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier.

Next up we visited the world famous Père Lachaise Cemetery

We had fun hunting the graves of famous people. The collage below includes recent photos of Oscar Wilde, Honoré de Balzac, Édith Piaf, Georges Seurat, Gioachino Rossini, Jim Morrison, Georges Bizet, Marcel Proust and Frédéric Chopin.

Later in the day we visited the Musée Rodin.

Having visited several art museums recently, we have both found that nearly all sculptures are quite boring and uninspiring. The works of Auguste Rodin, however were an exception.

The brilliance of his work lies on the contradiction of the extremities of time. On the one hand, his statues capture movement and life in a single instant. On the other hand, they stand motionless in bronze for all time.

It's not just monuments and museums that bring Paris to life. We also walked along the banks of the Seine

We circumnavigated the Île de la Cité and Notre Dame Cathedral.

We relaxed in the Place de Vosges

We took a stroll through the Jardin du Luxembourg

And we even mingled with the Sarkozy supporters in Place de la Concorde

The days of an artistic and bohemian Montmartre may be long gone but the neighbourhood was still dynamic and exciting. 

While there we managed to find the most useless shop in the world. We still have no idea what they were selling.

The Basilique du Sacré-Cœur

And the view from the top of the butte Montmartre. By the way, this guy is juggling three diabolos! 

Of course, Montmatre is best visited at night time.

Perhaps our best night in Paris was when we visited the Lapin Agile. On the left you can see it the night we visited, while on the right you can see it in 1872 only a decade after it opened.

The cabaret was entirely in French, featured mostly old drinking songs and was without a doubt one of the most authentic experiences we've had up to this point. 

One of the performers, Zouzou Thomas on accordian.

Continuing with our clichéd experience of Paris, we even had some great food.   

The highlight was a meal of all things duck.

The last couple of rainy days were spent indoors. Firstly at the Musée d'Orsay where we had fun trying to guess between a Manet and Monet.

And then of course the Louvre

The best bits of the Louvre were the Egyptian collection...

the Apollo Gallery... 

and of course getting a great view of the world's best painting according the masses.

Unfortunately the only way to end a blog entry full of things you already knew about Paris, is with the Eiffel Tower.

As seen from Montmartre before sunset.

And just before we climbed the tower late in the evening.

Sorry to say it, but even the view from the observation deck was more impressive than we had anticipated. 

Apologies again for all the photos, but we just couldn't leave anything out. We'll try our best to go to less interesting places from now on.

P.S. Some people have complained about the difficulty of leaving a comment about our blog. The easiest way is to press "comment", then choose "Name/URL" from the options, and then just leave your name. Thanks for the support.

Giversaillerny

After a pretty average new year's eve we have decided to give Paris another shot. But before we tell you all about that, there are two places just outside of Paris that we made sure to visit when the weather was good, the Palace of Versailles and Monet's Gardens at Giverny.

The palace from the front. 

From the back

The palace was enlarged by King Louis XIV who you may remember as Leonardo Di Caprio in "The Man in the Iron Mask" (1998), Michael Palin in "Monthy Python's Flying Circus" (1974) or even as  René d'Auchy in the French classic "Molière" (1909). 

We of course will remember him from this statue.

Inside the palace there are 2,300 rooms with the most famous being the Hall of Mirrors.

Of course, the other 2,299 rooms are much less impressive like this rather plain bedroom that was probably only used for unwanted guests or the family dog.

This room is where the king and queen would eat breakfast before an audience of ten curious aristocrats.

Legend has it that if you go through this door you can be transported to 1901 to see the Moberly-Jourdain incident. Unfortunately it was closed.

The gardens were huge, beautiful and full of Springish colours. 

Within the gardens is the grand canal which has a perimeter of 5.5km, or 3.4 miles for those of you living in the Imperial Age.

Within the complex are two smaller palaces, the Grand and Petit Trianon.

That's not to mention the private 1,200 seat Opera house within the gardens.

The most pleasant and surprising part of the day was seeing the tiny hamlet on the edge of the grounds.

It was so delightful and pretty that Josh decided to pose for a photo.

On the next sunny day we took a stroll through Claude Monet's house and gardens in Giverny.

We can't say much about the place as the photos speak for themselves. However, it's obvious to see that the tranquil and charming garden, with it's proximity to Paris, is the ideal place for an artist of Monet's temperament.

While we were about two weeks early to see the famous wisteria over the bridge, it was still lovely.

Finally, this is Josh's best effort to do a photo that looks like a painting.

Please sir, I want some maror

Why is this week different to all other weeks? Because this week we left Homer (our car) in Paris and flew to Israel for Pesach (Jewish festival of freedom and unleavened bread) and Yasmin's birthday (time of the year when the sun and earth are in the same position relative to one another as at the moment of her birth).

During the week we spent a lot of time with the Boerses. We were finally able to see Lia's fabulous garden during Spring.

One afternoon, Andre took us around to visit some of his artist friends including Karim Abu Shakra who does really cool paintings.

 

Of course we spent time with Eyal who sometimes moves a bit slower than his energetic daughter Yael.

Here is a more focused shot of Yael (taken by Eyal)

As was already mentioned, we were there for Pesach. It was lovely to spend the holiday with everyone and of course, special thanks goes to Lia for the wonderful meal and Andre for the lecture on "The influence of the exodus story on liberation movements throughout history as expressed through music". Thanks also to Gideon Boaz for the following beautiful photos of that evening.

Andre

Ido and Yigal

Josh and Anna (with the same haircut)

On our last day in Tel Aviv, Eyal took us to see the Israeli Body Painting Championship. We thoroughly enjoyed the afternoon of voyeurism by the beach. Of course, these photos come with a double nudity warning because there is a painted naked lady painted on a naked lady who is painted.

Also we spent a lot of time doing absolutely nothing, which was great!!!