Paris.. more pictures :)

Le Centre Pompidou in the background, which hosts the modern art museum, and is generally dedicated to culture. Sitting in front of the Tinguely-Niki de StPhalle fountain, which is covered in ice and doesnt work.. i have that same picture of me with my brother, 10 years ago.. :)



In front of the Louvre museum and the Arch of the Caroussel



Last time I was in Paris, they were renovating the church.. now it's shining white, just amazingly beautiful, specially in the sunset..



Another of the famous gargoyles from Notre Dame



Next to Les Invalides, you find the Rodin museum. At his death, Rodin gave all his works of art to the state in order to open a museum. Some of the sculptures are outside, in a very nice garden, all his most famous ones are here. And you can take a picture of the Thinker with the Eiffel tower in the background :)



Almost no tourist.. :) very nice. But Montmartre is much more than just the Sacré Coeur, it's a little village on its own, where you have to take your time, walk around, discover the small alleys. Much nicer in summer, with all the people in the street, the painters, musicians etc..



The Musée d'Orsay, built in an old train station. It hosts all the artwork (painting, sculpture and art deco) from the mid 1800s to the mid 1900s.. really worth it



La Sainte Chapelle, the private chapel of King Saint Louis (Louis 9th), where the relics of the Passion of the Christ could be found (some of them are now in Notre Dame, other in the Vatican). So much glass, it's really amazing. Worth visiting, specially on a sunny day.



If i was becoming a famous lawyer in France, I could get my fancy attorney dress there.. ;)



On the train back home, tired tired... but how great it was :) Paris just is the nicest city!

Ice-skating on the Eiffel Tower

If you suffer from vertigo, are afraid of heights like me, then you know what a pain it is to climb the stairs up the Eiffel Tower. Lucky there were very few people (most of the tourists taking the elevator, but since we're young and dont want to spend money on that, we decided to walk..), so I just did it the only way working for me: walking up straight without looking down, without stopping and gripping the right wall. Walking up the Eiffel tower without stopping is really tough, but i knew that stopping and having to start again after realizing im so high up with little people far under us would make me lose the use of my legs. Oh well, lucky there's a big stop between the first and second floor :).
Once on the platform of the first floor, looking down wasnt a problem, it's just while im walking on staircases. Anyway. Getting there, we found an ice-skating ring (very small but cute), which was lending you skates for free, just for the heck of saying : oh yes and yesterday i was ice skating on top of the Eiffel tower, how about you? :) My legs were still a bit shaky, but i managed to do a few rounds and pose for the picture without falling :)
After a well deserved hot chocolate, and the pictures taking bit on the second floor (you can only access the top of the tower by elevator which is 11 euros a person, so no thanks), we went back down, walking of course, legs shaking of course, with a great sunset in the background.
And right when we got down, they lit up the Eiffel tower, which was really nice, so we thought we should go to the Trocadero opposite it to take nice pics. And once we got there, the Eiffel tower started shimmering!! They're doing that once an hour, for 5 mn, and it's really great, you can see on the pictures all the little white lights, now imagine there are many more of those and they are all lit up randomly very fast...



I usually dont need to hold myself :)



Obvious from the shadow, this is the view from the Eiffel Tower, with the Basilique Sacré Coeur in the background



And the sparkling Eiffel Tower. In front is a token of friendship from Germany to France to celebrate the WorldCup 2008 in Germany. Looks more like a giant crystal ball to me, specially since it was glowing from the inside..

Paris

Last week Mark and I went for a 4 days mini trip to Paris, la ville de l'amour :) It was our little vacation outside of vacation time and Valentine's day not on Valentine's day :)
We went with the train, the direct TGV from Lausanne to Paris in 4 hours. We got extremely lucky with the weather, as we had blue sky for all our stay, but it was freezing cold, which as such isn't that bad, being the best excuse for a hot chocolate stop.

Here already a few pictures, and more to come...



Very few tourists, but many police and soldiers for security..



The view from Notre-Dame de Paris, home to the famous Hunchback Quasimodo from Victor Hugo.



The glass pyramid at the entrance of the Louvre museum