Thursday, January 19, 2006

I Love Paris in the Winter...

So let's see, we left our heroine walking about Paris. La Droguerie was closed, but in our search for another yarn shop I saw this window display of felted boxes and snapped a picture.



And as I said, we went to Notre Dame.


Notre Dame herself,




and the rose windows --







North















and South











and of course Joan (whose reputation was "rehabillitated" there, according to the sign.)







Finally, I really like this exterior shot -- with flying buttresses apparent.










Then back to the hotel to sleep. We had a great room:


Ha! I'm joking. That's really Louis XIV's room at Versailles, where we went the next day (I took my Funky Gloves for knitting on the train on the way out and back, and almost finished the first cuff). Versailles was....Versailles. As someone said to me this week when we were discussing the trip, "After seeing Versailles, it kinda makes you understand why they cut off Marie Antoinette's head." (Although I personally think Marie got a bum rap there, but who knows?) Dave and I were both a little wierded out by the Levee and the Couchee. It just doesn't seem decent to receive people formally from your bed.

We saw this statue at the top of the Queen's staircase:

The placque says it was to commemorate some royal's wedding (can't remember now whose). It amused me no end -- just what exactly do you think that quiver there represents? Hmmmm?

After returning from Versailles we went to the Eiffel Tower, arriving just after dusk.. The top floor was closed, so I still have not made it to the top, after three trips! I don't know if it was security or not. There were soldiers patrolling the grounds of the tower with machine guns, though. I wanted to get a picture of them holding their guns on Dave, but he wouldn't go for it. (Although he did accidentally walk into a soldier {and his machine gun} while looking up at the tower when we walked up.)

Then dinner and off we went to Le Caveau De La Huchette (just around the corner from our hotel) for a night of jazz and dancing. Dave wants to learn more swing dancing (he did take some lessons for awhile a few years back and again before going to China). He was very impressed by the 60+ (a few very +) gentlemen who were dancing with the cute 20 year olds at the club. He's also busy learning to play the jazz standards.

So, did I make it La Droguerie? You see my yarn counter has gone up....Tune in tomorrow!

3 comments:

Holly said...

Love the photos. The eiffel tower is now my desktop background. Thanks!!!

luvs2knit said...

Wow! The stained glass is beautiful. I hope you had a good time.

We missed you on Sunday

Anonymous said...

Yes but did you see the Hunchback? :) Must say you took beautiful pictures (which can be difficult) and that the post card arrived. My "souvenir" yarn now has a place of honor in the stash.