this is the cathedral! its the largest in France
this is the inside.
this is the quire screen. its entirely wood!
this is the outside from behind! flying buttresses! the church is a VERY good example of high french gothic architecture!ok so, now new day trip! yesterday our program organized for us a trip to fountainebleau and vaux le vicomte.
so we left paris at 9 am yesterday morning and drove an our south-westish of the city to fountainebleau. i'm not going to lie, i fell asleep on the bus so i couldn't tell you if the countryside was pretty or not on the way there... :-/
however, we got to the chateau:
and we got a guided tour. our guide was hilarious. she would laugh at her own jokes, when we got to the ballroom she started dancing, quite entertaining. i thoroughly enjoyed her. haha. but fountainebleau was originally a hunting lodge and each successive monarch put their mark on it by making their own apartments, or wings, or whatever, instead of re-doing one set of rooms all the time. so its pretty cool. we saw stuff from Francis I:
this is a wall in the first gallery of France!this is the ballroom completed by Henri II (Francis' son, who was more in love with his mistress Diana than his wife Catherine de Medici)
see: more in love with mistress a "D" and "H": not to mention that the whole room is decorated with the mytholicial Diana!
ok, so lots of other people lived here too, such as Napoleon I who had a secret library, and also bid his farwell before being exiled Elba here. this is his throne:
i personally thought it wasn't that great and that his bumblebee motif looked like a fly, but whatever. one piece thing i thought a little ironic: marie antoinette lived here for a bit (obv) and she ordered a bed that never got to the chateau before her death. however, napoleon's wife josephine did sleep in the bed even though it had marie antoinettes intials on it... i thought it was a little funny... anyways.Napoleon III was the last to live there.
ok, now vaux le vicomte
this chateau is where tony parker and eva longoria got married. so its really pretty:
however, the inside was not that well reconstructed and had an exhibit set up that WAS SO CHEESY. the exhibit was telling about the constructor of the chateau, Nicolas Fouquet, and how he met his end. so Fouquet brought together le vau (an architect i'm pretty sure), le brun (a painter), and le notre(a landscaper) for the first time with great success. he was so proud of his new chateau that he threw a party in honor of it being finished and invited the king, Louis XIV. louis obv liked to be the best and center of everything, hence the nickname "sun king" so he wasn't too pleased about this guy who built this amazing place. (louis still didn't have versailles done at this time) so he arrested fouquet on some trumped up charges and had him thrown in jail and thats where he died. SO. this exhibit has mannequins set up in the rooms and there are speakers playing dialouge, in one instance there was a projection on the mannequin's face to make it seem like the mannequin was actually talking (the projection was of a real man talking). in another room there was a video of a dance of the time. it was so cheesy.the gardens were the redeeming point of this place:
and this last one is me just playing with settings on my camera:
ok and that was our day! we ended up back in paris around 5 pm!
ok in other news: spring break is soon, and i'm sure i've said this, but i'm excited! i'm hitting up madrid, lisbon, las palmas on the canary islands, sevilla, granada, and avignon!
and then the first weekend in may i'm going with some friends from my program to the south of france: nice, monte carlo, marseilles, and aix-en-provence!
and then the weekend after that i'm going with my friend ariel to ISTANBUL! i'm pretty excited!
anyways, thats all for now!
No comments:
Post a Comment