This
is my second visit to Paris and i am still captivated by its beauty. My
cousins from Kuala Lumpur came over to Paris for a short holiday and we
were all cramped together at my sister's small apartment located in the
middle of the city. Here are some
pictures of the major tourists attractions in Paris which i was able to
visit in short space of time.
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| aaah... you will never
find yourself getting far from any kind of artistic work in Paris. On
most buildings, balconies and doors in particular are heavily decorated.
Wandering around "Rue this.."
or "Rue that.." is good enough even when you are not visiting any
museums. (which is hard to do since Paris offers hundred kinds of
museums and galleries!) |
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Butte de Montmarte - My cousins were feeding
some greedy pigeons, which probably had more than enough food already
by being fed from the previous tourists who sat there before us.
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Butte de Montmarte - View from Monmartre Hill, the highest point in Paris where Basilique du Sacré Coeur
is located.
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Butte
de Montmarte - Great view,
great bargain! Everyone has their own favourite type of clothing. I've
found mine!!
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| Notre Dame de Paris (Our Lady of Paris) - An excellent French Gothic
architecture which has also been
Catholic Paris' ceremonial focus for 700 years. |
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Notre Dame
- Above
the three pointed arched doors, which are finely decorated in
bas-relief are figures of angels and saints surmounted by a colonnade.
This genius medieval architecture attracts many visitors
from
all range of age including some noisy group of a school
children in red.
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Notre Dame - view from the south
side, overlooking the River Seine, reveals one of the famous rose
windows and
the dramatic flying buttresses covered behind the trees.
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...an ideal place
to have a break after cycling along the Seine.
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Paris is
definately a shopping heaven, catered for those who can afford top
designer's brand right down to brocante (second-hand goods) or bric-a-brac at
Paris' marches
aux puces (flea
markets). These four women are shopping monsters!!! They can walk for
hours and hours.. doing what they do best, shopping!!
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La Defénse -
While those shopping
monsters were busy "attacking" some fashionable clothes inside La
Defénse mall, i took this
oppurtinity to see the Grande Arche, a hollow cube white
marble and glass, (Notre Dame can easily fit in the middle of it) measuring 112m on each side.
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not particularly a
pretty sight, isn't it?
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Eiffel Tower - On the contrary,
once you are standing
on
top of the eiffel tower, the view of the city is just awesome! Here we are looking at Parc Du
Champ de Mars.
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Eiffel Tower -
A perfect place to celebrate my cousin's 24th birthday. We were both
excited as we enjoyed the panoramic view from the
tower's highest
platform measuring 276m in height. (7000 tonne in weight being held
together by 2.5 millions rivets)
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Eiffel Tower - it's hard to miss the
outstanding Église du
Dôme (Church
Dome) in the middle of Hôtel Des
Invalides's compound. The church, built
between 1677 and 1735 under Louis XIV became a mausoleum for
military leaders instead of the King's own use when it was first
planned.
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Église du
Dôme - The
gilded dome itself took 27 years to build. Right under the dome
lies Napoleon Bonaparte in no less than five coffins and a sarcophagus
of red porphyry. An impressive final resting place for a ruthless
ruler, a soldier and a man of action and arguably an intellectual in
his own right.. He was a shorty, like me ;)... uh and he once
conquered most of Europe.
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Musée
de
l'Armée - There are
plenty of canons being displayed outside and inside of this museum.
This one is my favourite simply because it has a very
interesting design at the back of the canon...
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Musée
de
l'Armée - yes,
a
"charming face" smiling back at you innocently despite once being used
as a killing machine hundred years ago..
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Musée
de
l'Armée - Islamic
calligraphy carved on the body of a canon used by Algerians armies in
1581.
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Musée
de
l'Armée - awww.. so
lovely. The canon body carved with two figures kissing passionately
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Musée
Rodin - what can i say, from human
to manmade sculptures, it's the theme of love for everyone :)
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Musée Rodin - Not many people
care about the back side of Rodin's most famous work, Le Penseur (The Thinker), so i
decided to take a picture of his bum.
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... but for those who has
never seen 'the thinker'.. here's what he looks like, a man sitting on
a piece of rock, thinking...
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Musée Rodin - "The
Cathedral" is another genius work of Rodin and according to him
"Really, there is no beautiful style, no beautiful design, and no
beautiful colour: there is just one beauty, that of the truth that is
revealed"
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Musée Rodin - "The Kiss" . No wonder some of his
works
aroused lots of controversy. The extreme realism of his artworks
provoked accusations that Rodin had made plaster casts from living
models.
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| Musée Rodin - i'd say his his critics had a point... |
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Musée Rodin -
well, somebody's
imagination has gone a bit
extreme here..
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Goodbye! Picture
of my
cousins a.k.a shopping monsters on the last day in Paris, before they
left for Kuala Lumpur.
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| Musée
des Égouts de Paris
(Sewage Museum) - Meanwhile i continue with my
museums expedition. Here, a very interesting, one of a kind
museum which is hard to forget. The smell wasn't so bad
really. I remember it smells something like a rotten vomit and yes you
can see all sorts of ambiguous objects floating on the water.
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| Musée
des Égouts de Paris
- It's a
common fear that rats bite people, even though
statistics show you are 10 times more likely to be bitten by a fellow
human being. These rats live in the sewage tunnel minding their own
business.. eating,
playing, sleeping and having lots of sex - a bit
like humans really. |
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| Place de la Concorde - It's a great
idea to put a fountain here in the middle of chaotic roundabout.
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Place de la Concorde - ..but is it artistic or plain tacky? Hmm..
I'm not so sure about the black and gold combination though. If it
helps you to decide, they have two sets of them on this roundabout!
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Jardin
des Tuileries - "aaahhh... this feels so good"
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Cité Metro
Station
- fast and efficient (though strike-prone) are two words to describe Paris'
underground network
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Sainte
Chapelle - the queue to get
into Sainte Chapelle was quite long, wasn't exactly a good day and i
haven't
got a brolly. Almost giving up at this time..
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| Sainte Chappelle
- but glad i didn't!
the Gothic architecture of
Sainte
Chappelle is designed to enthuse religious awe, consecrated in 1248 and
it
still has an enthralling effect once you step inside it. |
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| Sainte
Chappelle - Owes
its fame to the stained-glass
windows, which cover no less than three quarters of the height of the
walls, they create a luminous filigree effect bathing the chapel in an
extraordinary light.
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Sainte
Chappelle - sadly.. it's everything but silence in this
hall!
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Musée du Louvre -
a trip to Paris is definately incomplete without visiting the Louvre. I
came out from the underground and was greeted by Mona Lisa on the
outside wall of the world's largest and
finest art museum.
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Musée du Louvre -
However, i didn't have a chance to meet Mona Lisa close up and
personal because all i can see was this shiny bald head instead! ( i
tried
tiptoeing, jumping.. hence the blurry effect, but to no avail)
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Musée du Louvre- You
can expect a long queue like this at the grand glass pyramid entrance
designed by I.M Pei on the first Sunday of every month when the entry
charge is free! Half an hour earlier, i was there queing too.. I bet
most of them want to see Mona Lisa. Well, i wish them good luck!
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Musée du Louvre - once a
royal palace, the Louvre turned into a public museum in 1793 and now
exhibits 30 000 paintings. Not interested with the paintings? Well, i
can tell you that the
interior decor is impressive enough!
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| Musée du Louvre - "hmm,
i
wonder what's these two are up to.." , "yeah,whatever they do,
i'm sure it's something naughty". Ary Scheffer, a French painter of Dutch extraction depicted the life of Francesca da Rimini, an
Italian noblewoman with her secret lover Paulo, her husband's younger
brother of whom she fancied. Tragically, the couple were murdered when
her allegedly extremely unattractive husband discovered their
relationship. hmm..and you wonder why she had an affair..?
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Musée du Louvre - I
don't think you are doing a very good job mr security guard. Somebody
might steal a painting worth millions of euro while you are busy
sending sms-es!
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Musée du Louvre -
"honestly darling, it's a hard life lying on this table all day, to be
admired and gazed at.. but what can i say, it's the prize of being
gorgeous really"
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Musée du Louvre -
a creepy looking mummified body still in perfect shape is also on
display in Egyptian Antiquities section.
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Musée du Louvre -
i don't blame her. imagine walking around 645,840 sq ft of the exhibition area of this museum,
it would weary you out. i am sitting next to this exhausted
looking girl, eating my peanut butter sandwich for lunch :)
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Place
du Trocadéro - my final snapshot
with French policemen complete with their body armour on the way back
home from an
evening concert at Parc du Champ de Mars. It was an event which Paris
held in an attempt to compete with the
rest of the four cities (Madrid, New York, London, Moscow) to fight for the right to
host the 2012 Olympics. Good luck Paris!!
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All pictures and
other media are Copyright ©2005 Mayang
Adnin.
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