Ivy is Cinte

SaLSa, StILeTTos, BOOks, TraVELlingS, BoYs aNd EveRYthINg eLSe in BetWEen.

Tuesday, October 2, 2012

France 2012 - Part 2 - Paris

On Friday 3rd of August, our real sight seeing start. We start our day with pain au chocolate, croissant and madelines. When you in France you have to try their patisseries which simply the best. No nasi lemak, roti canai but i think i can live just eating pain au chocolate. ^_^

So, here we are at Louve. Long queue to go in but its quite fast. Seeing sea of human there remind me of the movie 'Night in a museum" when they re-open the museum. Louve is really big, the triangle glass that you see is the main entrance and the building around it is actually the museum. 


There are extensive collection of art at Louvre. They have painting hanged from wall after wall and an area separated for french, italian, spanish painting. There are section for sculpture, painting, egyptian and heard they going to open an area for islamic art.(this is the only area we manage to visit) Camera are allowed in french museum and chateau but you not allowed to use flash in order not to ruin the painting and art display. 

Among all the painting, Monalisa was well guarded. Only there that i learned leornardo da vinci have lot more better drawing than that monalisa alone. Lot more good painting from famous painter and about people that i didn't know. Among all the painting you can see the famous Napolean Coronation painting which is 10m wide x 6m tall. What interesting about this painting is, they have the same exact copy of the entire painting somewhere in France. Its funny when me & Nico saw the painting and tell to each other that we have see this before. We immediately google to find out which the original one and why they make a copy. 


Im not the type of person who crazy about art but i do appreciated them. Honestly i didn't know any of these famous painter & sculptor and if you ask me to choose between painting and sculpture, i choose sculpture. For me painting can lighten up your wall but sculpture will brighten up or dim the mood for the entire place. We initially plan to visit Rodin museum to see his work but unfortunately we didn't have time. Even though day are longer in France during summer everything is closed latest by 8 except for bar and restaurant. So in order to see everything we have limited time at each place. 

We then plan to walk all the way to Arc de Triomphe. Pass the arc, the garden and then we stop at concorde for picture. What i love about Paris is they really preserved their buildings. I've been told by my tourist guide that you cannot simply paint or decorate the house or shop that you bought as you want. There's no funny color and everything look almost identical. Its funny that you will feel that there's nothing change much from their 150 years building with a new one. Even the new building look old. 

Nico asked me if i want to take subway since its a long walk to Arc de Triomphe, i said no and wanted to walk since it didn't look far. But hell yeah, its damn far. But then im a tourist and i can walk. ^_^

(Doesn't look far isnt it?)

The famous Champ Elysee (its pronounce chomp-are-lay-zee) was crowded with tourist, expensive shop and cafe. My advise, don't buy any souvenir here since its cost double the normal price. I found out that buying from official shop at every place are much cheaper. 

You don't need ticket to go to Arc de Triomphe but you need one if you want to go on top of the building. Paris view from up here is stunning. This monument is actually remembrance for those who fought and died during french revolutionary. If you come at the right time you can see army marching and some ceremony involve. To get on top, there's no other way except taking stairs. Its cost 10 euro. 

(View from top of Arc de Triomphe)

Its almost 8 when we go to Galleries Lafayette. The shop almost close and nothing much we can do.If you want to buy cheap souvenir you can get it from here,not inside the store but outside. There 2 small store selling souvenir right at the traffic light. trust me, its really cheap. When we back to Lafayette a week after i get a chance to go inside but sadly i cant afford anything. Everything are designer store, expensive and full with chinese. 

Around 10min walk, you can go down to Hard Rock Cafe. Well, since we malaysian really like hard rock cafe t-shirt as souvenir i took the opportunity to get one for myself. Ladies tees cost appr 25 euro. 








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