The Paris Traveler

Today’s guest post is from Mary Jo Manzanares, Travel & Culture Channel Editor and travel blogger at Flyaway Cafe.
One of the most famous museums in the world is the Louvre, or more correctly the Musée du Louvre, and it was one of the items that was high on my Paris must-see list. It is located on the Right Bank (of the Seine) in the 1st arrondissement.
Originally a palace, the museum is now home to some of the most world-famous works of art, including the Mona Lisa, Winged Victory, and Aphrodite/Venus de Milo. It opened to the public in 1793, …read more

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Today’s guest post is from Mary Jo Manzanares, Travel & Culture Channel Editor and travel blogger at Flyaway Cafe.
Since a good portion of my time in Paris was spent visiting museums, the Paris Museum Pass was both a money saver and time saver.
With the pass, you get admission to a number of monuments and museums in and around Paris. Best of all — you don’t have to stand in those long lines — you get to bypass all those people and go straight to the front of the line. Temporary exhibits at the museums are usually excluded, though.
The pass …read more

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This is a guest post from Mary Jo Manzanares, Travel & Culture Channel Editor and blogger at Flyaway Cafe
 
Standing in the center of the Place Charles de Gaulle (also called the Place de l’Étoile) at the western end of the Champs-Élyseés, the Arc de Triomphe is the largest triumphal arch in the world. 
It honors those who bravely fought for France, particularly during the Napoleonic Wars.  ,  Beneath the arch is the tomb of the unknown soldier from World War I, marked by the very first eternal flame.  The flame burns in memory of those who died, but were …read more

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This is a guest post from Mary Jo Manzanares, Travel & Culture Channel Editor and blogger at Flyaway Cafe
 
As is often the case when travelers get to talking, the discussion soon turns to places we’ve been, places we’re going, and places we want to go.
One of my favorite recent trips was to Paris.

The photo was taken on a visit to the Louvre.  The statuary was in a garden atrium area of the museum, and is just one of hundreds of pieces on display.
I recently had the opportunity to watch some sculptors at work, and that has given me a …read more

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Le Petit Palais, sibling of Le Grand Palais located right across the street, is the proverbial story of flamboyant, older sister getting all the attention and right behind, getting lost in all the elder’s drama, is the tiny flower of a girl whose beauty is total and complete and goes unappreciated until one uncovers it.  That is what happens when one discovers the Petit Palais.   
Built for the 1900 l’Exposition universelle like its neighbor across the street, it is a gem that quietly goes about its business of being beautiful and housing a wide collection of art ranging from antiquity …read more

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In my quest to come up with the unusual that will entertain and bring all of us together in weird and wacky ways to Paris, I have found this very interesting connection between what has become an icon in contemporary culture, two architects and a museum in Paris.
Tinker Hatfield (I could not love that name more), a trained architect turned shoe designer, has been working for Nike since the mid-80’s. Originally hired to design arenas and showrooms for the company, he intuitively knew that for him shoe design was where it was at and switched gears.  He can be credited …read more

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 Well, finding Paris in New York is much easier than I thought–especially if you take your search to the Metropolitan Museum of Art.  Today, I took an incredibly long cab ride from my hotel in SoHo to the museum–clearly I was being ripped off as the ride home took a mere 10 minutes.  The rest of the day made up for all that.  
Looking at the photo above, you would guess I might be at, oh, I don’t know, perhaps Versailles.  I say that because every room there looks very similar to this one.  One whole section of the Met’s  European …read more

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 I found these photos on flickr and instantly fell in love with whatever I was looking at.  With some patience and the aid of Google, I was able to dig a little deeper for my own interests sake and couldn’t be selfish and keep all the info to myself.
This is just one of the beautifully maintained gardens at Château de Gourdon, a fortress built into a cliff, with its beginnings as far back as the 12th century, being added onto again in the mid-17th century.  This particular garden is the “Italian Terrace”, filled with immaculately trimmed boxwoods, recreating elaborate topiaries …read more

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I am fairly up on art, sculpture, design–artsy fartsy kinds of things you might say.  But I cannot tell a lie, I have never heard of Richard Serra.  Or if I have it just isn’t registering with me right now and I will have to ask my resident art expert, my daughter, Taylor.
Richard Serra–he is an American minimalist sculpture and video artist known for his work in large scale assemblies of sheet metal.  His installations span the globe and the reason I bring him to your attention today is because he is celebrating his opening of “Promenade” here in Paris. 
His work …read more

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I have a great deal of admiration for the way the French embrace  their cultural heritage.  Often times, they stubbornly cling to ideas that came to life hundreds of years ago, having been passed down from generation to generation which to those of us looking in, can seem outdated.  And yet, you cannot convince them otherwise.  They are held together by these beliefs, united by their art and architecture, raised on their philosophers’ discourse,  take their politics to the streets as their ancestors did and the thread that holds them all together is their combined sense of “French-ness”.  
 Here in …read more

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