Europe Trip (Paris #2)

3rd April 2011
It was Sunday. It was also my dad's birthday!

In the morning, we planned to visit 2 morning markets we saw over in the internet. The very reason why my mum booked this particular hotel. We wanted to know the lifestyle of the people in France. When we stepped out from our hotel, we were surprised to find that right in front of it was a huge market! What a waste of time thinking on how to go to the other markets when it was in front of the hotel all the while! The morning market was really interesting. Really really interesting!

 

 

There were a wide variety of things sold there. There were the normal ones and there were also some stalls I don't see in Malaysia like cheese, wine, honey, second-hand French books, oysters, chocolates, olives etc. Lots of food stalls too!

 

Chocolates!



Bakery!

Potatoes!

Fish!

Not sure what are these!

Oysters and others!

Bread!

Wine!

Olives!

Roasted chickens!

Honey and soap! <3

Cheese!



Avocados!

Entered a nearby grocery shop. I love the way the fruits were displayed.
Somehow they look prettier.

In the end, one of the things that we bought was a box of strawberries as they were so cheap and huge! I ate till I think I could stand not eating any for the next 5 years!




2kg for only £5 (RM 26.96). Humungous and sweet!

Our next destination was the famous Louvre Museum! We took Metro to the Palais Royal--Musee du Louvre station. A little about the museum. It is one of the world's largest museums and a historic monument. The museum is too big that we had to choose which wing (it has many wings) to explore in a day. Since it was the first Sunday of the month, there was no entrance fee. How lucky!

However, each famous artworks were simply surrounded by many people. Could not really take photos with them. Here are some of the pictures I took.



Entrance to the museum

The Nike of Samothrace (winged Victory).

I found out that the museum is actually housed in a palace itself! Cannot imagine how the king and queen could live in such big place. Must be tiring to walk from one room to another.




The hallway full of paintings!

The Wedding Feast at Cana

Guess who are they taking picture of?

Its the Mona Lisa! I still have no idea what is so special about this painting.

The ceiling! Amazing!

The courtyard of the museum

Aphrodite, known as Venus de Milo.

With the Louvre pyramid. Reminds me of the Da Vinci Code!

After Louvre Museum, we headed to the Cathedrale Notre-Dame de Paris. We had to take the metro and then walked towards it. It is placed on a little island at the Seine River. The cathedral is a Gothic, Catholic cathedral. Said to have the finest example of French Gothic architecture in Europe. The interior was pretty superb.

Unique design!

We entered and found that there was a Catholic service inside. My first time seeing how Catholic church conducts service. I wonder how the church members can concentrate since there was always a constant stream of visitors entering the church even on Sundays. I couldn't really take nice pictures as flash was not allowed during service. 

 

Look at the high walls.

After visiting the cathedral, we strolled around, enjoying the beauty of the place. It was so serene. We wanted to go to Versailles Palace but did not as time was limited.

 

At night, we went to the Eiffel Tower again to view the night version of it. Pictures taken are not nice though but the scenery was still breath-taking.

 

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