A three hour tour

On Saturday, we took a free tour of Paris. There is a company that offers free tours of several cities all over Europe. The tour was awesome, even if it was a bit long. There is so much to see and so many interesting stories to hear that you need at least three and a half hours for it all.

The tours met at this central Paris point, the fountain at St. Michel. (Sounds a bit like "semi-shell" if you say it quickly.) The statue depicts the warrior, St. Michel, banishing Satan to Hell. This place is in the Latin Quarter, named so because the university students who lived there in centuries past communicated in their common language, Latin.

Our superb guide, James, took us to all the major sights in Paris and told us the little stories behind them. One of the bridges over the Seine was erected by King Henry IV (Good King Henry). He had his artist acquaintances add faces to the bridge. The faces are modeled after Henry's friends' masks at a party he had in his palace.

Some of the faces are very funny. The party guests were apparently not happy about lending their visages to the bridge.

Across the Seine, I saw this painter. I thought the scene so very French that I had to get a picture. This is what Paris is all about. The budding artists are as prevalent as the pastries.


The tour took us back to the Louvre, though this time only to the outside. I took more pictures in the sunlight of course. Above is the Sully Pavilion, the center wing of the Louvre. It contains French paintings and Napoleon's crown jewels, among many other things.


These are three statues on the outside of the Louvre. If you look closely, you'll see that the figure in the middle, Voltaire, is covered in a net. That is because his statue is crumbling! The French move so slowly, however, the only motion they've made toward fixing it is throwing a net over it to catch the pieces before they fall and hit tourists. (They are le tired.)

We paused for a while on one of the many bridges over the Seine and I took a few pictures of the Fall French leaves. Most of the leaves aren't turning in Galway, so it was nice to experience Fall. The weather in Ireland reflects it, but the colors do not.

This is one of the only photos I took of the Eiffel Tower in the day time. We didn't get there until sunset on Saturday, so I had to view it from a distance in the middle of the day. Our tour guide told us that it was originally built as an attraction for the World's Fair in 1889. It was only meant to be temporary but it was turned into a radio tower, so it provided a useful service.

It is very peaceful in Place de la Concorde. It's ironic that it should be called Place of Harmony because it is the place where many people were beheaded. It's quite a nice place to be now, though, complete with fountain and trees. In the distance, you can see the obelisk, which Napoleon stole from Egypt. It has a bunch of Egyptian writing on it.

At the end of the tour, we walked down part of the Champs Eylsees. We had a good view of the Arc de Triomphe. The picture doesn't do it justice. I had to be fast because I was standing in the middle of the street. There were a lot of other tourists too and we were all just chilling out between the two lanes of traffic.

And thus ended our three (or maybe four) hour tour. We were dead tired, but the day had only begun. More to come!