Les Musées et Les Jardins

Being in Paris has been wonderful... I have been soaking up so many museums, castles and gardens lately :) We have been to so many amazing places and seen so much I will just give you a couple of my favorite highlights:


This is in Giverny where we saw Monet's Japanese garden.. it was beautiful to see where all his wonderful paintings came from and then the next few days we were able to see the art itself!
It was also amazing to see the house he lived in and where his large family ate :)

During our first week here we were able to see Palais Garnier -- The opera house from Phantom of the Opera!!! This is the ceiling which is very modern in comparison to the rest of the building, but I think it brightens the room :) It is very colorful and depicts famous ballet performances that often occur at Palais Garnier. (Sadly most of our knowledge beforehand about the opera house from the Phantom of the Opera turned out to be false... )

Les Musées

Sorry all for the lack of photos recently. I have been soaking up so many museums, castles and gardens lately :) I'll put up pictures as soon as I can. Our group went to see Monet's gardens which are so beautiful!! His japanese garden is the one he painted a lot with the famous bridge. Well, we were there and walked on that bridge.. it was so neat! It was amazing to see the house he lived in and where his large family ate :) We sadly weren't able to see Versaille due to strikes at all the museums the day it was planned.. but we were able to go to the Loire valley to see several amazing castles!

Paris

So I'm here in Paris... finalement! It is wonderful after all my travels to return to a place I am more familiar with :) During the last couple weeks we traveled all together to Florence and saw the Uffizi and some amazing pieces of italian art, and then we split up for free travel. I went with a group of five, Jennifer, JoAnna, John, Andi and I all went to Dublin for a couple days, then to London and our last journey took us to Barcelona. Dublin was beautiful with half-penny bridge and a famous prison to visit... London was fabulous- we saw Wicked, saw Big Ben, and rode the Tube everywhere including right to King's Cross to see platform 9 & 3/4 !!! Then Barcelona was restful with a nice beach, warmer weather and sunny skies... Jennifer and I even explored the museum there-- with a grand entrance with hundreds of stairs and fountains... and inside were even grander finds. After all the english speaking countries being in Spain challenged us because none of us spoke spanish... now in France again I find I feel so much more comfortable speaking in French and I understand much more of what people around me are talking about :) Today seeing the Louvre for the first time was fantastic... thinking back on it, I just saw so many famous paintings and sculptures I've heard about all of my life.. all in the short time of 4 hours... I can't wait to see what other marvelous adventures I will have here in Paris-- so much is planned for these last weeks here :)