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Up at 6.30am hopped on the Metro for Tulleries station to meet up with our walking tour by Cityrama. We were early so we walked around the Tulleries gardens and the Louvre. The gardens were lovely from the Louvre looking down to the Champs Elysees we could see the Luxor Obelisk down the Champs Elysees to the Arc de Triomphe. The Obelisk is a 23 metre high Egyptian obelisk standing at the center of the Place de la Concorde. It was originally located at the entrance to Luxor Temple, in Egypt. We met up with our tour guide Danielle and walked to the Louvre.
We jumped the queue and went straight to the Mona Lisa. The history of the Mona Lisa is shrouded in mystery. Among the aspects which remain unclear are the exact identity of the sitter, who commissioned the portrait, how long Leonardo worked on the painting, how long he kept it, and how it came to be in the French royal collection. The delicate dark veil that covers Mona Lisa's hair is sometimes considered a mourning veil. In fact, such veils were commonly worn as a mark of virtue. Her clothing is unremarkable. Neither the yellow sleeves of her gown, nor her pleated gown, nor the scarf delicately draped round her shoulders are signs of aristocratic status.
Then to Aphrodite of Milos better known as the Venus de Milo, which is an ancient Greek statue and one of the most famous works of ancient Greek sculpture. Created sometime between 130 and 100 BC, it is believed to depict Aphrodite, the Greek goddess of love and beauty (Venus to the Romans). It is a marble sculpture, slightly larger than life size at (6 ft 8 in) high. The arms and original plinth were lost following the discovery. From an inscription that was on its plinth, it is thought to be the work of Alexandros of Antioch.
Then to the Winged Victory of Somanthrace or The Nike of Samothrace, discovered in 1863, is estimated to have been created around 190 BC. It was created to not only honor the goddess, Nike, but to honor a sea battle. It conveys a sense of action and triumph as well as portraying artful flowing drapery through its features which the Greeks considered ideal beauty.
We saw the painting - The Coronation of Napoleon completed in 1807 by Jacques-Louis David, the official painter of Napoleon. The painting has imposing dimensions, as it is almost ten metres wide by approximately six metres tall. The crowning and the coronation took place at Notre-Dame de Paris, a way for Napoleon to make it clear that he was a son of the Revolution.
The largest painting in the Louvre depicts the Wedding Feast at Cana, a miracle story from the Christian New Testament. In the story Jesus and his disciples were invited to a wedding celebration in Cana in the Galilee. Towards the end of the feast, when the wine was running out, Jesus commanded servants to fill jugs with water, which he then turned into wine (his first miracle of seven, as recounted in the Gospel according to John).
We saw many amazing paintings and sculptures but we needed to move on so we walked to the river and hopped on the Bato Bus and cruised along till we got to the Eiffel Tower.
We jumped the queue again and went up to the first floor on the tower and had lunch at 58 Restuarant (58 metres from the ground). Views were lovely but our meal was very average. The Eiffel Tower is an iron lattice tower located on the Champ de Mars in Paris, named after the engineer Gustave Eiffel, whose company designed and built the tower in 1887.
After lunch we hopped on the Bato Bus again and cruised along until we got to Notre Dame Cathedral which is a historic Roman Rite Catholic Marian cathedral. The cathedral is widely considered to be one of the finest examples of French Gothic architecture and among the largest and most well-known church buildings in the world. The naturalism of its sculptures and stained glass are in contrast with earlier Romanesque architecture.
We left the Cathedral and then walked through the French Quarters to the Metro Station and headed back to our hotel to freshen up and have our Evergreen Tour Meeting at 6pm.
After the meeting we hopped on Metro again and travelled back down to the Seine River near the Eiffel Tower for dinner on a small floating restuarant and watched the twinkling lights of the tower. Then we walked to Trocadero Metro station which is across the river where you will find the Palais de Chaillot with a broad plaza from which you get the best view of the Eiffel Tower.
Amazing day!!!!!!!!!!
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