Final Post

For the last post: the link to my web photo album. À bientôt!

http://picasaweb.google.com/KeithKnippa

made it to Houston we made it to Houston!

waiting for customs

Trying on sunglasses. Melissa just can't seem to get into Paris fashions. I don't know why?

La BnF

It's our last day in Paris and it occurred to me that I hadn't posted anything about the BnF (Bibliotheque Nationale de France), which was the whole point of the trip. These photos are of the branch on Rue de Richelieu. They didn't really have what I was looking for, so I mostly hung out at the BnF Mitterrand.
I enjoyed Mitterrand, although I have no pictures. It's pretty ugly on the outside anyway. At Mitterand, I spent time in the Rare Books area. I got to read issues of the Cabinet des modes, which were published in 1785. The Cabinet des modes was an 18th-century fashion magazine. They were bound into a single volume. It was pretty cool handling a 225-year-old book! On the downside, the staff at both libraries were less fluent in English than I expected they would be. It was hard to communicate what I needed in broken French, and they found it difficult to respond. But we managed. I'm looking forward to another visit, but when my French improves.
I ordered lots of documents for reproduction. They should get to Lubbock sometime this summer. I had several documents digitized, and I ordered some microfilm. Also, from the Richelieu branch, I had reproductions made of some 18th-century engravings featuring the latest styles of the day. I'm very excited about those. All in all, a successful trip and I'm looking forward to starting my thesis.

Today we went to the National Museum of the Middle Ages. It was very interesting and had a great garden outside the 15th century building that used the same plants that were featured in the tapestries inside the Museum.
Next we got some take out food and headed for the Luxembourg Gardens. We ate our lunch under some shade trees and this being a holiday for France, everyone else had the same idea. We managed to find a good spot nonetheless.
The Luxembourg Gardens has all that is charming, unique, and befuddling about Parisian parks: cookie-cutter trees, ironed-and-pressed walkways, sculpted flower beds, and immaculate emerald lawns meant for admiring, not for lounging.
Next, we stumbled upon Eglise Saint-Sulpice. We just walked in and it was amazing. It was hot today and we enjoyed the coolness inside the church. Pictures do not do it justice.

We found a metro station and got off at Rue Mouffetard; a winding market street with more affordable shopping, but nonetheless charming. We had been at it all day and it was very hot today. The metro trains were all packed because of the holiday and good weather. We made our way back to our apartment and opened up all the great windows and enjoyed a French beer with a hoppiness not usually found in European beers. Another full day and tired legs. We wouldn't have it any other way!

Bordeaux

We had a great trip to Bordeaux and a very nice visit with my cousin Claudette and her husband Patrick. We arrived from Paris on the TGV which stands for Train à Grande Vitesse, meaning high-speed train.
Claudette made a wonderful lunch and Patrick started pouring the wine.
This being wine country we went to Saint Emilion, a World Heritage site, with fascinating Romanesque churches and ruins stretching all along steep and narrow streets. The Romans planted grapes here in the 2nd Century and wine country was born. We sat and sipped some very good sparkling wine under the shade trees bought some wines to take home. Patrick took us out to a delicious dinner with the best white wine I have ever had. I got some strange looks from the restaurant staff for being a vegetarian (the French just can't wrap their heads around this concept) but in the end, they provided me with an excellent meal. We had croissants for breakfast served the French way: Hot milk poured in a bowl, pour hot coffee in and dunk the croissants in the cafe ou lait. With a very nice bottle of Moët et Chandon given to us from Patrick (THANK YOU!) we were back on the train and back to Paris. Wow. . . What a great trip.

The Gardens of Versailles

The gardens of Versailles were amazing. The formality of the gardens were, one way by which Louis XIV displayed his supremacy as a leader. The gardens were sculpted in such a way that they would show, to outside observers, that he had the power to command even nature. Designed by landscape architect Andre Le Notre, the gardens were geometric in form and were intended to suggest that reason and order trumps all, for Enlightenment thought and the Age of Reason were in their ascendancy. Trees were imported and rivers were diverted to create this show at the king's command. Six hundred fountains and countless statues punctuate the 250 acres that the gardens entail. This photo is of the L'Orangerie, an unheard of orange grove created in northern France.
This is a photo of the Latona Fountain and Parterre. Beyond this is the Grand Canal. While the gardens were under construction, there were many complaints from French courtiers, and especially foreign courtiers, because they failed to see Louis XIV's vision. They had to put up with fetid water and muddy grounds. The whole enterprise was unimpressive and ridiculous in their view, but it turned out beautifully in the end.
The largest fountain on the grounds, the Bassin de Neptune. Another homage that Louis XIV paid to himself. We're glad he did. Unfortunately it costs a fortune to run the fountains all the time, so they're only functioning on the weekends and at certain times.
The green preceeding the mile-long Grand Canal. This photo is taken with the Palace in the distance. This gives a sense of the scale on which the gardens were constructed.