Sisters in Paris

Thursday - Mind-blowing Art and Views! and Prices!

At Tiffany's. They didn't invite us for breakfast.

Part of the planning for our trip involved each of us choosing at least one thing that we really really wanted to do. Thursday we made a real effort to check some of those things off our list. 

We started the day with breakfast at the cafe on the ile de la cite where we had our first Parisian meal. Darlene was very pleased with the design on her cafe au lait. 

After breakfast, we headed to Sainte-Chapelle, because that was a major attraction on my list. Even though I have lived in Paris, and visited many times, I had never been into Sainte-Chapelle,  because of the extremely long lines. One of the reasons the lines at Sainte-Chapelle are so long is because it is inside the Palace of Justice complex, which is a working government institution. So visitors all have to go through security, which is time-consuming. 

Sainte-Chapelle was built in 6 short years, between 1242 and 1248, to house the Crown of Thorns worn by Christ.

When you enter the chapel on the ground floor, you see lots of pretty windows and painted columns. 

And then you climb up a set of windy stairs in dim light. When you step out of the stairwell, behold! 6,500 square feet of stained glass; 1,100 different panels! You literally step into glorious coloured light. 

And remember, every one of these panels was made by hand. The glass itself had to be manufactured and coloured by hand, and then cut into the necessary shapes to make the incredible details in the panels.  

There were two school groups in the chapel while we were there. The teachers had given them mirrors to use as drawing aids. Whenever one of the teachers "shhhhhhhhhhhhhhh'd," ALL of the people in the chapel, even the tour guides, lowered their voices!

After reluctantly leaving Sainte-Chapelle, we strolled along the Seine (Cathy bought a painting on the way), and through the Tuileries Gardens. Our destination was the Orangerie, an Art Museum near the Place de la Concorde.

The Orangerie is the home of Monet's incredible 'Water Lilies,' painted over six  years at Monet's home in Giverny. The paintings were Monet's gift to the French people, a gesture and a prayer for hope and rest and peace. There are eight huge panels displayed in two oval rooms. Visitors stand or sit in the middle of the panels, immersed in a way in Monet's vision of the beautiful lily pond. He painted different parts of the pond at different parts of the day. The paintings are about more than flowers, they are about light, and water, and change. They are about Monet's strange and beautiful way of looking at the world. 

The next item on our wish list was a walk up the Champs Elysees. One of the highlights of the stroll was a stop at Tiffany's, where I was gobsmacked by the outrageous amounts of money that some people can spend on jewellery. 30,000 euros for a watch!!! A million dollars for a ring!!!! I can be a bit foolhardy with my money (artwork, books, artwork, books, artwork, books), but I can't even wrap my head around having that amount of money, and then SPENDING that amount of money on a watch!!!! 

fashion victim?

Our goal for the day had been to arrive at the Arc de Triomphe before sunset, so that we could see the change over the city with nightfall. We did it. We climbed 284 steps. We did it. 

And it was worth it.