Lutetia Pulchra Est: Musee National du Moyen Age, Sorbonne, Pantheon, Saint-Etienne-du-Mont, Arenes de Lutece

Yesterday, we met up with more people for this walk like Rebecca, Chelsea, Richard, etc. Even though the walk took longer than it would have in a small group, it was nice to socialize with some other people. We all really liked Musee de Cluny. It had so many interesting things. The Lady and the Unicorn tapestries were breath-taking. I guess i'm really interested in tapestries, now. I liked that a lot more things in this museum were about women and for women, etc. it made it a lot more interesting for me. It's interesting that the guide b book mentioned that the Sorbon has a lot of riots and the like, but that it was also "ultra conservative." i guess it was interesting to me because in the united states, civil unrest and riots sometimes are viewed as what more liberals do than conservatives.

The Pantheon was pretty neat, but super cold. it almost just seemed like some building that was only used as a glorified tomb. It was pretty neat to see the final resting places of some big names. Seeing famous people's graves has never excited me that much, though. Saint-Etienne-du-Mont was kind of cool, too. I'm starting to be bugged by all the revolutionaries, though, because they seem to have destroyed a lot of really great stuff, including saint Genevieve's remains.

The wall on this walk wasn't as cool cause it really was just a sliver. Some kids were really excited to see it, though. The roman arena was cool, too. It's so weird to see it used as a park, and not all roped off. It's also weird that there aren't many roman ruins in paris. I've been to other cities where there were many more ruins.

Marais Walk 1

The Marais walk was fun. we were going to do both in one day but then it started raining on us. We saw "the wall." it is actually quite a bit of it there, we were only expecting to see a corner of it or so. there were a bunch of high schoolers watching us take pictures while they were smoking. the saint-paul church was cool and really ornate. the side entrance was kind of cool. I wish i remembered what Jesuits believed better.

we went into Humas' home. It was free so that ruled. It looked like any other house from that era, basically. He must have liked oriental stuff cause one of his rooms was full of that stuff. Then we went to the musee Carnavalet. Erickson seems to love that museeum, and we couldn't quite figure out why. It was pretty cool, and free as well, i believe so i think i'll be going back.

Playing Hooky in le Quartier Latin

This walk was pretty fun to do. Ariel pointed out to me that we did walk ten on day ten of our trip. I guess it would be day 11 for me, though. The fountain was really cool. I have never heard of "La Cantatrice Chauve" before so the importance of theTheatre de la Huchette didn't really make sense to me. When we went into L'eglise Saint-Severin was ok, but we couldn't find the palm tree column. There were two women in there practicing some old-school-sounding songs so that was great. I saw that there was some concert there soon but i can't remember what so i'm going to have to check up on that later. we also checked out some of the art galleries, but i didn't really see anything to my taste. we missed the food places he was talking about, too, so that was a little sad.

Paris in Layers: Notre Dame, Sainte-Chapelle, Conciergerie

Today was freezing! but This walk was actually really fun. We couldn't go to the top of Notre Dame because they were on strike... so i'll have to do that another day. We also went to the Crypte du Parvis. It was really neat to see the roman ruins up close! It's odd to think that all that stuff just got built over, i always wonder how that happens. It's also weird to think i'm walking over ruins like that all the time while i'm in the City. It seems like it was an odd place for a hospital to be... right in front of Notre Dame...

After that we entered into some old royal palace or something like that. I was confused. We saw marie antoinette's cell from right before she died. Other than that that place was kind of... uh... boring i guess. Just empty rooms with pictures on the wall and creepy mannequins. IDK

sainte-chapelle was amazing, of course! It's really small. It's also the most colorful gothic cathedral i have seen that i remember. unfortunately, the front of the chapel is being renovated until 2013, so we didn't get to see that. I suppose it's good that they are cleaning it, though. I'll have to come back later.

I really enjoyed this walk! It had a lot of interesting things to see. At first i was kind of thinking that taking a break from walking to go into places would kind of be annoying but I was glad to go in to see those places. I'll have to visit everything again when i have the chance. My host family was also quite impressed that we went and saw all these places in one day. the mom made the motion of speed walking.

St Dennis Church

It was kind of difficult to find it and I didn't really get to go inside but from the outside it looks beautiful. It's sad there is an entrance fee to see the graves of the royalty. What an interesting part of history. It's also strange that it is in the middle of modern buildings like that. almost lost. I can't wait to learn more about it!

Metro Walk

This time, it was just Courtney, Ariel, and me who went on this walk. It was a fun one if not also just slightly boring. We decided to do this one because it was a cold day and we thought we would knock this one out before it was later in the semester. It was actually pretty interesting learning some of the history of the Metro. It always surprises me how old it is. And I wonder how they made such sturdy tunnels right under the city. Some of the older designed entrances are pretty sweet. Seeing the tole booth was also interesting, that was something I never knew about. We had a hard time finding some of the things Erickson wanted us to look at, at times, but for the most part we enjoyed ourselves. It will be interesting to note the style of of stations and the different types of trains each line has from now on.

Montmartre Walk

Most of us kids went on this walk together. We were all following Courtney and Richard as they took us through each of the roads. We all laughed/were really annoyed when Erickson took us down one road just for us to go back up it. We saw a lot of houses of famous painters. We couldn't remember who Toulouse Lautrec was until Ariel reminded me. I guess that was the hipster hang out spot of the day in Paris. Nothing we saw was outright amazing, but it was pretty fun and informative. I don't think that was an area of town I would normally visit so I'm glad I got to see it. There were some points where I was thinking "why did we need to see this?" like when we were told to go down the road to look at some little fountain and such. Like I said, though, It was fun.

It was a nice and easy first walk to have. It wasn't that long and there were no entrance fees.