hannahintherockies
Hannah in the Rockies
A blog detailing my adventures in moving to, and living in, Vancouver, BC
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These are actually the only pictures I have from Geneva! All from the archaeological site under St. Pierre's cathedral
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just arrived back in Vancouver! Will post Geneva photos tomorrow probably 馃挋
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Some miscellaneous images: the street that I was staying on in Paris, a Louis Vuitton building decorated with Yayoi Kusama's signature dots and flowers, and the red carpet being rolled out for the Laureus Awards, a major sporting award ceremony attended by Lionel Messi and a handful of All Blacks.
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Some more monuments: the Arc de Triomphe (as seen through a sunroof), the Conciergerie and Palace of Justice across the Seine on the Ile de la Cite (the conciergerie is on the right, the one with the more medieval-looking turrets). Then the Pantheon, also decked out in French flags, a commerce building with a silver horseman, and the Arc de Triomphe from a different viewpoint.
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Some of the landmarks around Paris: Notre Dame, the Eiffel Tower, and the museum known as Les Invalides, a large structure which was originally built as housing for returned veterans who were injured ("invalides"). Today, Les Invalides is the home of a military museum, and the resting place of Napoleon. The large dome is part of a church. The last picture depicts the obelisk in the Place de La Concord, which is capped in gold (it's reflecting so brightly here that you can't see it), and the Champs Elysees, which is decked out with French flags for Victory in Europe Day (8 May).
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Pictures from two of the large gardens I went to. The first two are from the Tuileries, the large garden opposite the Louvre. I found that this garden was usually very crowded, and was also filled with gnats. It is well-located though, with one end terminating at the Louvre and the other at the Place de la Concorde, known as the site of Marie Antoinette's execution. The Eiffel Tower is visible in the first picture, while the second I found to be interesting because I've never seen a public statue draped this way, and it looked quite artistic.
The second garden is the Square des Batignolles, which was very close to where I stayed. There were all kinds of birds in this park: ducks, pukeko-type swamp birds, three types of geese (and goslings), pigeons, wax-eyes, sparrows, and more that I can't remember the name of. It's a lovely garden, with a central stream and two small waterfalls (pictured), and a small wooden bridge across the stream. It used to be a kind of waste site for the railroad before it was converted into a park.
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Palais Garnier (opera house)
Top to bottom: the staircase from the lobby, the ornate (and controversial) ceiling of the auditorium with the 8 tonne crystal chandelier, the stage, the topless karyatids outside the empress' box (so the emperor could see them!), the clothed karyatids outside the emperor's box (so the empress could see those!), the night and day ceilings respectively, ceiling detail in the great hall (styled after Versailles' hall of mirrors), the great hall, me peeping into one of the many mirrors!
This visit was very interesting, and it was led by a well-educated guide who knew a lot about the building (cheers Franco!). As you may know, this opera house is perhaps best known as the home of the Phantom of the Opera (doo doo doo doo!), who lives in the lake under the opera house. The lake does actually exist, but it's a network of aqueducts rather than a Venice-like setting, as it is often depicted. In Gaston Leroux's 1910 novel, the Phantom requested box number five, and to this day, box number five can't be booked by members of the audience, and is permanently dedicated to the phantom (and a lighting rig). Box number five is the one directly above the clothed karyatids, and is pretty densely packed with lights and equipment.
The photos really don't do the decoration justice. There are so many styles of painting, sculpture, mosaic, metalwork, etc, that the architect had to convince the people funding the project that he was actually pioneering a new "French imperial" style, in order to sell them on the idea. They are all meticulously detailed, and every single component has meaning. The architect's central vision was a temple of music, rather than a simple "opera house", and as such, the god Apollo and figures such as the Muses and Orpheus are commonly depicted. In one corner, there are four busts of fictional women, each representing an era in the opera house's lighting history: candlelight, oil lamps, electricity, and modern lighting.
I personally really like the ceiling, which depicts a number of scenes from famous ballets on the outer (large) circle, and a few composers (of operas) on the inner circle, underneath the chandelier. Many of the characters fly over Paris, experiencing weightlessness spurred by the dual magics of love and ballet.
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Some of the things I ate and drank in Paris! A tea by the Palais Garnier opera house, a fantastic plate of spaghetti aglio e olio, and some lemon sorbet :)
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The Near Eastern Wing
Top to bottom: reliefs depicting the transport of cedar logs to Sargon II's palace at Khorsabad (I love the little fish and turtles etc!), a statue of Gudea (the ruler of Lagash, with the plans for the city he built on his lap), the cylinders of Gudea (which tell a mythological tale), the stele of Ur-Nanshe, the stele of the vultures (front and back, highly fragmented), and my favourite Hassuna bowl!
I appreciate that these might all look the same, or not be super interesting, but these are my Mona Lisas! I was really excited to see these objects because I wrote about many of them in the course I just finished, including in the final exam about two weeks ago. They range in age; the Hassuna bowl is about 9000 years old, and the plaque of Ur-Nanshe and stele of the vultures are about 4000 years old, with Sargon II's reliefs being much younger (from about 2600 years ago). The creators and viewers of these pieces all lived in very different time periods, were ruled by different dynasties, and spoke many different languages.
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Me with the case studies from my thesis!
Top to bottom: the law codex of Hammurabi, a lamassu and wall reliefs from the palace of Ashurnasirpal II, and a lion from Babylon. The Louvre only holds one Parthenon marble (or at least, only displays one), which is in an earlier post. The last picture is the victory stele of Naram Sin, another very famous Mesopotamian artwork which was not in my thesis, but has a very similar object history to the stele of Hammurabi.
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Top to bottom: one of the Parthenon marbles, a sculpture of Athena, one of the oldest surviving garments in the world (a linen robe approximately 4000 years old, from Egypt), and the Sphinx which guards the Egyptian collections in the Louvre.
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The French sculpture gallery
Top to bottom: overlooking part of the gallery, statue of the three Graces (I think), a famous bust of Marie Antoinette, and a statue of Psyche with a butterfly
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The Louvre, part 1 (the staples)
I think each of these are pretty self explanatory, but I would note that the mona lisa room looked like that less than half an hour after the Louvre opened! I can't imagine what it looks like on busier days and times.
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