Okay, so, a few words about France. I love it! I love it! I love it! I can't believe our last major excursion is over. We visited three places in France; two little cities called Colmar and Beanue, and a major city called Paris.
C O L M A R
When we arrived in Colmar, it was so beautiful; more so because it has been so long since we had all seen the sun. We went on to get lunch as at the point, after a 5 hour bus ride, we were all pretty hungry. We all went to different places to eat. My little group went to a little burger/ pizza place, where Lexie and I shared a pizza that had one fried egg on it. It was pretty tasty. After having lunch, we went to the Unterlinden Museum, where we saw the Isenheim Altar, an amazing painting of Christ's crucifixion and death, by Matthais Grunewald. This painting was pretty amazing and very well detailed. It was also used as an indirect treatment for sickness at that time. It depicted Christ bearing boils on his body, as a way to let the people know that Christ relates to them and to give them hope that if they don't get cured now, they have hope of an eternity with Christ. I really loved our visit to this museum, it housed many sculptures of Mary and Jesus, and it also had many beautiful landscape paintings and amazing vases designs. The colors of the painting were so vibrant, which brought them to life. Also just going to drop this in here, while in Colmar, Lexie and I played the alphabet game which I won. This is one for the books because this was my first time playing this game. After visiting the museum, we were back on the road for another 4-5 ish hours, on our way to Beanue.
B E A N U E
We arrived at Beanue late in the evening and we went to check in our hotel, which was called hotel de la prix. This hotel was so beautiful and luxurious. After we checked into our room. Lexie and I turned on the TV and we saw Grey's anatomy playing in French and we were so excited because I took French in middle school, and Lexie took it in high school; it was nice to see how much we remembered. We also listened to some french songs, some of them were: Je te donne, Andalouse, and Derniere danse. After resting for a while, it was time to go and get dinner. Dinner was absolutely delicious. With our meals, we tried the famous wine from Beanue called Burgundy. After dinner, Professor Wasser was talking to some locals and apparently they were impressed by us, and they taught us a song, more like a chant or coordinated noise. Also fun fact, Brynn found out that the guy who taught us the chant appeared on the Real Housewives of New York. After dinner, we retired for the night. The next morning, we went to the Hospices de Beanue (Hotel-Dieu), which was used mostly to care for the poor during the middle ages. We visited the pharmacy in Hotel Dieu, where we got an idea of how medicine were made and stored. We saw the Beanue altarpiece painted by Rigier van der Weyden. The painting was amazingly detailed and vibrant just like the Isenheim Altar in Colmar, explaining why it took a long time to paint. After visting the Hotel Dieu, we were allowed to walk around Beanue and self-explore. Lexie, Jack and I walked around Beanue and happily took in the beauty of this little town in France. On our way to get lunch, we stumbled upon the cutest little shop ever. It was a little bookstore that sold old books, paintings, and signed posted cards. Lexie and I got some signed postcard. After this, we went to the a cafe to get lunch. I didn't really get anything from this cafe, so I went to a grocery store to get a little snack. After getting food, we all met up and started our journey to Paris.
P A R I S
Pari was amazing. I heard both good and bad things about Paris, but as a whole I absolutely loved it. The transportation was a bit crazy because they were a ton of people, but aside from that it was a beautiful city, and our tour guide Julian was very bubbly and made our time in Paris an enjoyable one. We arrived in Paris in the evening time at like 6 pm. We checked into the hotel (hotel La Manufacture), got settled in and then all went out t
o a crepe restaurant on the left bank to get dinner. I got a savory crepe with ham, cheese and egg, and for dessert I got chocolate crepe. After dinner, we went back to the hotel. After a little while, Lexie, Jack and I went on a walk along the Seine river. We walked all the way from our hotel to Notre Dame church, and walked all the way back. We got back to the hotel and went to bed. The next day, we got to see Paris in daylight as we toured the city. We went to a place where we got a great view of the Eiffel Tower. We visited the Arc of Triompe, we had one of the best macaroons I have ever tasted in my life. We saw a Egyptian monument (Luxor Obelisk) in a big city center called the Place de la Concorde. After this, Lexie, Alexa, Izzie and I went to a Kabeb restaurant and we got a kabeb pita, which was so delicious. We visited the history museum of Medicine, where we got to see medical equipments used in the 18th century. After this, we went to the Notre Dame church, and this time I saw the inside of it. After the church, we had free time. Nothing eventful really happened, I went back to the hotel with couple of people and we relaxed for a bit and met up with the rest of the group at the Eiffel Tower. The Eiffel Tower was gorgeous!! We went to the top of the tower to see an incredible view of the city. At the top of the tower, I got one of the best cup of hot chocolate ever. It was topped with whipped cream and chocolate sprinkles. After this we went back down. I went back to the hotel, got dinner and hung out with Brynn in her room for a while and then went to sleep. The next day we went to the Louvre. It was so beautiful on the outside and inside and it is full of many art masterpieces. It housed the famous Mona Lisa painting by Leonardo da Vinci and others of his famous paintings like that of St. John the Baptist. We got to see the tallest panting in he world as well. Julian, our tour guide, who was a art history major made the trip more interesting as he gave us an elaborate breakdown of what to look at in the paintings and sculptures we saw. After the Louvre, we got dinner and a few of us went to a military hospital museum called Val-de-Grace. In the museum, we saw a church dedicated to the birth of Louis XIV, which was so beautiful, and we saw many military medicine equipments used during the world war I and we saw how the first immunization came about with the immunity from cow pox. We also saw depiction of how facial reconstruction turned out back then. After this, we went back to the hotel, and a group of us went to the Sacre Coeur church on a hill and afterward got dinner and walked around to see the Moulin Rouge. The next day, we visited the palace of Versailles, which was so beautiful. I have never seen that much gold all at once in one place. We had a picnic type lunch at Versailles; all I have to say about this is that there were so much bread. After this, we went back to the hotel, grabbed our stuff and said our goodbyes as we departed to our respective places for Spring break. Up next Italy!! I will keep you updated,
Bis spater.
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