Paris

Luxembourg Gardens
Montmartre
Crepes and Gelato

Montparnasse Cemetery
Moulin Rouge
Notre Dame Cathedral

Mythos Greek Restaurant
Pantheon
Foucault's Pendulum

Luxembourg Gardens: The gardens are very large and have sculpted statues throughout the park. It is a very nice place to come on a nice afternoon to sit, relax and watch the people. This is one of our favorite place to come and just do nothing.

Crepes and Gelato: Crepes are very popular and can be bought in many cafe's as well as from street vendors. These are chocolate and banana, one of our favorites. Gelato is a very rich ice cream, made with eggs and usually containing a relatively low percentage of butterfat.

Montmartre: The is the Montmartre area where the Sacre Coeur is located. In this area, there are many portrait artists on the street and people selling crafts.

Montparnasse Cemetery: The cemetery was planned by Napoleon outside the city walls to replace the numerous congested small cemeteries within the old city, viewed as a health hazard at the turn of the 19th century. There are several interesting tomb stones and one of our favorites is poet's Charles Pigeon Family Tomb. (the couple in bed) We also really like the grumpy old man statue.

Moulin Rouge: The Moulin Rouge was built in 1885 and turned into a dance hall in 1900; only the red sails outside date from the original. The can-can originated in the polka gardens of the Rue de la Grande-Chaumiere in Montparnasse, but it will always be associated with the night club.

Notre Dame Cathedral: The cathedral is one of our favorite places in Paris. It stands majestically on the Ile de la Cite, cradle of the city. Pope Alexander III laid the first stone in 1163 marking the start of 170 years of toil by armies of Gothic architects and medieval craftsmen.

We tried several times to make it to the top of the bell tower, but no luck. Every time we arrive, the line was very long and it moves very slowly. This is something to do on another trip.

Notre Dame - Inside: There is a beautiful Pieta behind the high alter by Nicolas Coustou. It stands on a guilded base that was sculpted by Francois Girardon.

Mythos Greek Restaurant: A block over the Notre Dame, there is a street with many different types of restaurants. This area was always crowded with people decided which restaurant to try for dinner. One evening we selected the Greek restaurant Mythos. Chris and Tina got to break a plate as they entered. The food was excellent and there was a small Greek band that you could dance to. Yes we know it was a very touristy thing to do, but it was a lot of fun.

Pantheon: We had never toured the Pantheon before on previous trips to Paris. We are glad we finally did this time. We arrived just in time to attend a guided tour to the top of the dome.

The Pantheon is based on the one in Rome and has 22 Corinthian columns.

When Louis XV recovered from desperate illness in 1744, he was so grateful to be alive that he conceived a magnificent church to honor Sainte Genevieve. Work begin in 1764 and was completed in 1790. With the Revolution underway, the church was soon turned into a pantheon - a location for the tombs of France's good and great. Napoleon returned it to the Church in 1806, but it was secularized and then desecularized once more before finally being made a civic building in 1885.

Pantheon - Foucault's Pendulum: The scientist Foucault made the first large-scale installation of his pendulum. Demonstrating the rotation of the earth on it's own axis, the pendulum was a veritable symbol of the triumph of Science in this period.

Suppose* someone put a pendulum above the South Pole and sets it swinging in a simple arc. To someone directly above the Pole and not turning with the earth, the pendulum would seem to trace repeatedly an arc in the same plane while the earth rotated slowly clockwise below it. To someone on the earth, however, the earth seems to be stationary, and the plane of the pendulum's motion would seem to move slowly anticlockwise, viewed from above. We say that the pendulum's motion precesses. The earth turns on its axis every 23.93 hours, so to the terrestrial observer at the pole, the plane of the pendulum seems to precess through 360 degrees in that time.

Views from the Pantheon Dome: Walking around the dome of the Pantheon, we had great views of Paris. The photos show: St. Etienne du Mont, Notre Dame, Eiffel Tower, St. Sulpice and the columns around the exterior of the dome.

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