Paris Walks

The BYU students can take a 1 credit course called Paris Walks.   They get a book that contains maps and information about 20 walks around Paris  They have to do 12 walks and blog about 8 of them.  Today we did Walk #9 "Follow the Money."  According to the book, this walk starts at the most important social center of the Old Regime and goes to what would become the center of the bourgeois regimes of the nineteenth century: les Grands Boulevards.  

We started at the Louvre.  This was the first time we've seen the Louvre and today we just walked around the outside.  We are waiting to go inside with the students as part of their Art History class.

Francois Mitterrand called the glass pyramids "a scar on the face of Paris."

Moving on with the walk, from the Louvre to the Palais Royal.

The kids were eyeing this boy at the park waiting
to take over the stationary bike.

Victory!

I had to get a picture of Chris consulting the map.

These rent-a-bikes are available all over Paris.  You rent them from one location and
 then can return them anywhere.  Kind-of like Redbox.

Luke was done for the day. 

Taking a sugar break.  We tried coconut flan, chocolate pastries, and hot chocolate.  Yum!

On our way home we decided to go to the Petit Palais, the fine arts museum of the City of Paris it includes paintings and sculptures from the 1600s-1900s.  Luke was clearly not happy about this decision.  We had to do a quick walk through and will definitely need to go back, luckily it is free.

Luke looked up at the ceiling and said
"that's boring, it's just painted."  He was a handful today.

My favorite: The First Funeral A sculpture of Adam and Even with Abel after he is killed by Cain.
I thought it was really beautiful and profound.

Chris's favorite: a series of paintings of poor Parisians in a bread line.

I spy a pirate ship.