Paris - part 4 (Chartres Cathedral, part 2)

Well I'm going to go ahead and apologize for this shoddy entry. This posting is about the outside of Chartres Cathedral and I must admit that I didn't pay too much attention to what Luke was telling us about the sculptures on the exterior because it was absolutely freezing and I was running around taking pictures, like I do.


Here is part of the town next to the church. It is a nice little town with lots of shops and eateries. And cold weather. But it might be nicer in the summer.


The group huddles around Luke searching for knowledge and warmth.


Here are the flying buttresses that make spaces of this size possible. For some reason the Italians don't like them. If their churches have them they are usually hidden within other architectural elements. But the French put them right out there for the world to see. Perverts.


I run as far away as possible to avoid learning anything from Luke's lecture.


Sarah is frozen while the rest of the class moves on.


So here are lots of people. Contact Luke for more information.


I think that the middle one might be St. Christopher. I don't think I would make a very good art history lecturer.


Sean and Kellin return to save the frozen Sarah.


Top secret door.


Chartres Cathedral's backside.


More of the town with the labyrinth in the foreground. I missed it, but apparently there's a labyrinth on the ground in the church. I guess it was too dark and it may have been covered by seats.




And the other side of the church.


Luckily I had just bought some gloves and a scarf for the trip because I did not bring any to Italy. This entire trip was cold and rainy. After the church, we had free time to walk around and find some lunch before we had to get back on the train to go to Versailles.

Paris - part 3 (Chartres Cathedral, part 1)

During our second day in Paris we spent most of our time outside of Paris. We all left the hotel, marching behind Professor Hatfield, and boarded the train to the southwest. The town of Chartres is a little over 50 miles outside of Paris. We would later take the same train back in towards Paris, stopping along the way in Versailles, about 10 miles outside of Paris.


The church, like everything else in Europe was under construction. Cathedrale Notre-Dame de Chartres, otherwise known as the Cathedral of Our Lady of Chartres, or Chartres Cathedral if you're into the whole brevity thing, was built between 1194 and 1220 and is one of the finest examples of the gothic style of architecture in France. There was a cathedral on this site for hundreds of years, but it burnt down. Then it burnt down again. And again. Anway, the 1220 rebuilding was very fast and led to the way it looks today, for the most part. The shorter tower was built in 1140 and the taller one was built in the 16th century and is 377 feet tall.


The church is also very famous for its stained glass windows. We don't see too much stained glass in Italy. And we would see much more stained glass later in this trip.


At the time of its building, Chartres had the highest vaults in France.


Chartres had been a very popular pilgrim destination even before the cathedral was built. Pilgrims would make their way around the church, stopping at the different chapels on the exterior walls.


The church has a relic that is supposed to be a tunic that belonged to Mary. It was supposedly given to the church by Charlemagne or Charles the Bald. It was thought to be lost in one of the fires that consumed the church, but it turned up when some priests emerged from the vaults underneath the church. It's a miracle!
I think it's funny that I read that Charlemagne got the tunic on a crusade in Jerusalem. I may be mistaken, but I don't think that Charlemagne ever made it to the Middle East and he died over 250 years before the First Crusade. That's why we librarians are taught not to trust wikipedia. Unless I am wrong (and I am never wrong), in which case I will apologize the the good folks at wikipedia.


This is part of the wall that surrounds the altar.


These are the windows behind the high altar (one is covered due to construction).


Here is one of the mighty pillars that lead up to the extremely high vaulted ceiling. I guess there's nothing to compare its mighty size to. But believe me, it's mighty alright.


This is one of the three rose windows. There is one at the back of the church above the main entrance, and one in each of the transepts.


More vaults!


The tour will continue outside...

Paris - part 2

And back to the Louvre. Today we will focus on sculpture and other non-painting stuff. Oh, besides forgetting about the Venus de Milo, we also decided to skip the wing with the Dutch and other northern paintings. I thought nothing of it at the time (since I've been there before) but then today, eight and a half hours ago to be precise, I became a fan of Pieter Bruegel the Elder and Hieronymus Bosch. I'll have to pay more attention next time.


Here's Giambologna's Mercury. Or is it? Didn't I see that exact same thing at the Bargello Museum in Florence? Indeed I did. I think I heard that this one is a copy. Then Sarah said to me, "Isn't the copy art as well?" or some such nonsense that I am clearly not qualified to answer. I am only qualified to answer questions about volleyball rules, library classification systems, and tacos.


This is terrible, but I didn't write anything down while we were there. I did take pictures of the information next to the works of art on a few occassions, when I really wanted to remember something. But I can't remember who created this statue. I have seen a couple of similar sculptures in my jaunts around Italy. I think one was in Venice. But I am amazed by the effect created here. To show a veiled face with marble. Well, to be able to show both the veil and the face, that's what I find interesting.


Then there it was, at the top of the steps. Sarah's favorite, and perhaps my favorite (she has too much influence over me). The Nike of Samothrace, or Winged Victory, is from the 3rd century B.C.


More importantly, Sarah and I have a miniature copy back home. It is where Sarah's buckeye beads reside when she is not wearing them.


Sarah does her best impression.


This poor fellow was so bored that he felt compelled to poke his eye out.


Here we are down by the medieval foundations of the Louvre, which was a fortress that was built in the 12th century.


I was checking the walls to see if the foundations would last another 800 years. They looked okay.


Here is a line of baboons. Wait! The one at the end is Kellin.


They have mummies. Human...


and otherwise.


It was getting late by the time we left. Sarah was unhappy because she wanted to see the Coptic room to search for her gesture, but it was closed.
Sarah, Kellin, Mary, and I left with an undergrad named Anne and went in search of dinner. We ended up finding a delicious place near our hotel. I got some kind of meat and French onion soup. But, since we were in France it was just called onion soup. How deceptive.

Paris - part 1

Once again I was lucky enough to attach myself onto a Syracuse University Florence school trip. Sarah and I did have to pay for this one though, as did all the other 50+ students that signed up for this optional trip that had something to do with a Michelangelo class. On the evening of Thursday, November 20, Sarah, Kellin, and I met Mary outside of her nearby apartment and we headed off to the Campo di Marte train station. This was the first time that I had used this station, though I pass it on the way to work every morning. It is not a terminus, as is the Santa Maria Novella station that we always use. Instead it is one of those stations that is just along the tracks between other major hubs. Another first, this was the first time that I had taken a night train.
We met up with the undergrads, two TAs Sean and Luke, and Prof. Hatfield and we were on our way some time after 6:00. Sarah and Kellin got to get a glimpse of how hectic Sean and Luke's jobs are, trying to keep track of a bunch of college students, their tickets, and their passports. That is exactly what they are going to be in charge of next semester. It certainly doesn't make the job any easier that at least one student always seems to be late, be missing, or to have forgotten their passport. It really makes things interesting.
The students all seemed to be in rooms together, but Sarah, Kellin, Mary, and I were in a six person room with two strangers. Well, strangers to us. They were an Italian couple and seemed pretty nice. There is not a lot of room in these sleeper cars. There are six seats, three to a side, that fold into the wall to create six bunks, three along each wall. There is not much extra room. There is a little aisle, a ladder, and unless you are on the top bunk there is barely any room in the bunks. There certainly isn't enough room to sit up. But they are meant for sleeping. There aren't even any plugs (like the regional trains we usually take always have for computers, or whatever), which was not good for Sarah since she intended to work on her thesis during the trip.


We all stayed up for a while talking, then reading and working on school work, then finally set up the bunks to go to sleep. I woke up a lot, and when it began getting light outside I decided to just stay awake and look out the window. Luckily I was on one of the middle bunks and facing the front of the train so I could see all the scenery. I absolutely loved traveling through France. The towns are so beautiful. Italy, of course, is beautiful too, but I am definitely more a fan of northern European architecture. I love the villages and stone buildings. If I had a better vantage point I would probably have taken hundreds of pictures that morning. Mary also woke up early and couldn't resist taking a picture of me. Can you blame her?


I think we were scheduled to arrive at Paris's Gare de Bercy train station around 9 something in the morning on Friday. (I just learned that this station is the 7th largest in Paris and accommodates four daily sleeper trains between Paris and Italy.) For some reason (someone said we had to take a detour) we arrived two hours late. All that extra time and our rooms still weren't ready at the hotel. They were renovating and putting new beds in all the rooms. So after we left the hotel we spent pretty much the rest of the day at the Louvre. Many of my two readers may recognize the picture above as the inside of the pyramid that is over the central lobby area. When you go to the museum you go through security, go downstairs, fight through 7,003 tourists, get your tickets, then make your way into one of the three sections of the massive museum. The museum is actually in the building you can kind of see outside the pyramid in the picture, but you enter then through this subterranean, sub-pyramid lobby.


The class broke up into three groups, led by Prof. Hatfield, Sean, and Luke. We went with Sean's group and Sarah, Kellin, and Mary were prepared to lecture on a few works as well. At one point we were admiring some old paint, when a group of school children, who must have had to write something down for class, spontaneously and without audible orders, broke into the formation seen above. It was quite interesting, but I'd hate to be the poor sap that's in the front of the line with no back upon which to write.


The Musee du Louvre, which is French for Ridiculously Large Place With Lots of Paint and Sculpture, is the most visited art museum in the galaxy. Just ask this guy, front and center, who seems to be yelling at a work of art.


Hey, there's Clark's gesture! Man, I can't wait until this semester's over so I can stop locating the group's gestures. This, of course, is Leonardo da Vinci's Creepy Person Pointing Up, aka St. John the Baptist.


And there it is. The Mona Lisa. I really don't get it. I mean, it's swell and all. But what's all the hoopla about? Apparently it wasn't always so famous. It started to gain attention in the mid-19th century, but really became famous in 1911 when it was stolen. An employee took it off the wall, rolled it up and put it in his coat, and just walked out with it. It was lost for two years until the former employee, who had been hiding it in his apartment, decided that it belonged in Italy (since it was by an Italian) and tried to sell it to the Uffizi Gallery, next door to my apartment. He was arrested, but only served a few months in prison.
I just realized while I was writing this that I forgot to get a picture of the Venus de Milo. Oh well. It's only really famous and a couple of thousand years old. No big whoop. I'll see it next time.


Here's a close-up. And moving on...


Unlike almost every museum I've been to in Italy and many of the churches, you are free to take pictures in the Louvre, even of the biggies. If you want to see the best work of art in the museum, see my cousin Brad's site (linked above on the left) and type in Louvre into the search box. He was just there also and posted an article about it called Paris on Bastille Day. It's about seven or eight pictures down.


Here's Sarah dreaming about Pontormo again. Like she does.


I had seen these images of the seasons by Giuseppe Arcimboldo before, but I never realized that they were late Renaissance works of art. I looked him up (I do work at Harvard's Center for Italian Renaissance Studies after all) and found that this is what he does. He painted images of people and buildings made up of other materials. There's also one of a librarian made up of books. Who care's about the Mona Lisa? This is what I call art!


Mary, Kellin, and Sarah pose in front of the work of art that their group chose to be on their symposium posters and invitations. Oh, did I mention that I found this little gem that shows Sarah's gesture and Kellin's gesture and Clark's gesture and other gestures? Yep. I'm the one.


More art. This museum has a lot of it. But the coffee in their cafe is terrible, so don't bother going.
The Paris postings will continue with more from the Louvre...

Malta - part 5

We spent the rest of our time in Valetta just walking around. The city is supposed to be famous for its palaces, but I didn't see any. We walked to the end of the peninsula until we had to stop at a fence outside of Fort St. Elmo. Why they ever canonized that stupid muppet, I'll never understand. We couldn't go in or even walk around it. It probably looks cool from the water, but all we saw was the ugly backside of it through an ugly chain link fence. The ugly fort has been the ugly home to Malta's ugly police academy for decades. I never saw Mahoney, Hightower, or Tackleberry. Or that guy hat makes the weird noises. Bummer.


Since we couldn't visit any forts, here are some pictures of them and others of the harbor areas. The one across the harbor in this picture is Fort Ricasoli.


This is called the Grand Harbour. The right side of the picture is the south side of the peninsula looking back towards the rest of the island. I believe that Fort St. Michael is on the left of the picture, with Fort St. Angelo just out of the picture to the left.


More of the same. I was surprised that we didn't see many boats out in the harbor. We did see a small fleet of tugboats pulling some oil contraption-looking thing into the harbor. That's always exciting.


Fort Ricasoli again. I think they are missing a money-making opportunity by not allowing people into the forts. Although it would probably cost a lot to staff them and make them safe for tourists. Who am I kidding? This is Malta. They don't have to be safe. I think most of Europe's historic sites would be considered safety hazards in the US. Falling rocks and debris, slippery and uneven surfaces, perilous winding castle stairways? Who cares? It's history!


Here you can see some of the massive defensive walls that surround Valetta. They had to be able to withstand attacks by the Ottoman fleets. Of course, when British-run Malta was attacked by air raids during WWII the walls didn't help too much. Apparently there was a lot of damage during the war.


This is the opposite side of the peninsula looking out onto Marsamxett Harbour. The blob on the left is the island that houses Fort Manoel. Behind it is other parts of this fairly densely populated area around Valetta. In the distance you can see a high-rise building. This is in the area of St. Julians, where we stayed.


These are some of Valetta's defenses on the north side of the peninsula.


And here are more of the modern buses that roam around Malta. They really varied is design and age. You can see a fairly modern one in the background on the left. I think they take what they can get. When you ride the buses (or buy almost anything) in Malta, you might want to have exact change ready. They are loathe to part with their own change for some reason. Sometimes they just won't give you any. Steph had an encounter with one of the bus drivers who refused to give her a fairly large amount of change she was due. This, despite the fact that he had a large collection of change that he had collected sitting next to him. I've seen in to a lesser extent in Italian cities too. And in Paris. Some people just look at you like you are the worst person in the world because you don't have anything smaller than a euro.


After lunch and walking around in Valetta, we headed back towards St. Julians. Some of us got off the bus early in order to walk around what I think was St. Julians Bay. We headed down along the water. This area doesn't have many beaches. They have some, but most of what they have is like this. Rocky areas with ladders every once in a while.


So, I had never swam in the Mediterranean before. And this may have only been a bay that opened into the sea, but it was close enough. So I took my shorts off and put on my gigantic swimming trunks that I had in my bag, gave my shirt and sandals to Sarah, and dove in. I sensibly tested the water first and, despite being November, it was warm enough for me.


I swam for quite a while, not caring if others had to wait for me. It was really nice, but as I went farther towards the sea (not hat I got too close to it) the water seemed to be getting a little rougher. Or maybe I was just getting tired. So eventually I made my way towards one of the ladders and ended my Mediterranean journey.


Which led to this outstanding picture of me and my giant shorts, having just conquered the sea. After that, we walked all the way back to our hotel. After I took a shower, the girls decided to go to the pool. So I decided to stay dry. Apparently they were out of control. The lights weren't on and they were acting like kids. Early the next morning, with only a very short time before we had to leave for the airport, the girls all decided that they needed to swim in the sea as well. So they ran down to one of the little sandy beaches, jumped in, acted like kids again, jumped back out, and ran to get ready in the hotel. That was good. You shouldn't pass up a chance to swim in the Mediterranean.


I'm pretty sure this picture was from the inside of Joey's cab back on Gozo. Steph was in the front, trying to keep Joey in line, while Sarah, Lara, Mary, and I (with my poofy hair) were crammed in the back.


And here was our last view of Malta as we flew back to Italy, the land of jobs and papers and symposiums. Our stay was too short.