FRANCE



March 30th-April 2nd

We spent the last four days in lovely Paris. It was an amazing city, with so much to see and do and the food was delicious! Other then one mishap on our first night in Paris (Dave’s wallet was stolen while we were eating dinner….not a very nice welcome to France) we had an amazing time. Our first day there we went straight to the Louvre. It was an absolutely beautiful museum. It used to be a Palace so the building alone was worth seeing. We got to see some major works from classic painters such as Da Vinci and Carracci, and we also got to see some very famous and amazing sculptures.
On our second day in Paris we went on a Hop on and off bus tour that went to all the major tourist sites around Paris. We stopped at Notre Dame, which is an amazing cathedral. Then we saw the Arc de Triomphe and drove pass the place that thousands of decapitations took place during the French revolution (including Marie Antoinette’s). Our last stop that day was the Eiffel tower. It was great. Much taller then we were expecting, but had breath taking views! It was a little scary traveling to the top but we got a fantastic view of the city. Our favourite part of the trip was going to the Palace of Versailles. It was about a 40 minute train ride from Paris, but it was worth it. The palace was built by King Louis the 14th and the entire place was built symmetrically, including the vast gardens that surrounded the palace. We had an amazing time and spent the entire day walking around the palace and gardens. We even went out in a row boat into the Grand Canal.
Our final day was spent at the Musee d’Orsay. It was an old train station that was converted into the Museum. It had a ton of impressionist works including some of Monet’s, Manet’s and Renoir’s very famous works. Later we went for a walk by Luxembourg palace and through the gardens there. It must be a French hot spot because it was packed! It was a beautiful day and people were all over the place enjoying lunch and relaxing. We also went to the Pantheon (which houses the tombs of some of Frances most famous people, including Voltaire) before we headed back to the airport. In all we had a great time in France!


The Louvre






















The Mona Lisa!
Leonardo Da Vinci

















The raft of the Medusa- Theodore Gericault










Sculpture Garden








Notre Dame

Arc De Triomphe

The Eiffel Tower

On the way up to the top

The Palace of Versaille

The Entrance Gates

Apollo Fountain

Musee D'Orsay

Monet's Cathedral Paintings

Van Gogh (Above)

Degas's Ballerina

Pantheon and Luxembourg

March 21, 2009


Kilmainham Gaol (Prison built in 1796)



On the weekend we went to see a 200 year old prison, one of the only unoccupied prisons in Europe. It is famous for housing many of the political prisoners from the 1916 Easter Rising, a rebellion for Ireland independence, which destroyed Dublin’s city centre. It was amazing to see and the tour guide was great. We were taken throughout the prison and shown many of the rooms were their most famous prisoners were held, including Constance Markiewiicz, who was originally sentenced to death, but her charge was later dropped and she became the first women elected to the British House of Commons. She refused though and helped form the House of Representatives in Ireland.

All of the cell doors had holes carved into them. This was an old Victorian model of prisoner correction. It was thought that if prisoners felt that they were always under surveillance then it would help correct their criminal behaviours and help reform them.

It was a really fun and interesting day!

You also might find the main room familiar. Apparently a lot of movies and television shows were filmed here including The Tudors, and the original Italian Job, and more that I can’t remember.

St. Patrick’s Day Festival week

Ireland celebrates St. Patrick’s day for a week. They have various events going on all week long. We went to a few of them. We saw an old Disney movie called Darby O’Gill and the little people. The director was actually at the screening and gave a speech about the movie before it began. When it first came out in Ireland a lot of people were upset with some of the stereotypes displayed in the movie of Irish people. Apparently the chef justice of Ireland picketed the movie when it first came out because of the stereotyping. It was a great movie though. It starred a young Sean Connery, before he developed his strange way of speaking.

We also went to the parade on St. Patrick’s day. It was ridiculously busy. People were climbing on statues and sitting on street signs and lamp post in order to see the parade. We didn’t get there early enough so we had a hard time seeing anything, but what we did see was strange…one of there floats was a bunch of washing machines.
We also went to the Fair and went on the giant Ferris wheel. We got a great view of the city. It was a lot of fun.