A recounting of the last few days through photos of faces.
On Wednesday, we visited the Louvre Museum. While visiting the largest museum in the world has been on my bucket list for years and we were able to see many different artworks (many of which had faces), the highlight was certainly this:
No, not the Mona Lisa. The guy in the middle, staring at the camera… that I didn’t even notice until I sent the photo to my family and a random person’s face was all they could see. Rather than one of the world’s most famous paintings, they all chose to focus on a random person that my dad said looked like Adam Savage from MythBusters.
We spent Thursday in the Latin Quarter, the historic student center within the city due to the location of the Sorbonne, one of the world’s oldest universities. During our trip through the Latin Quarter, we focused on the Roman and Medieval history of Paris, which was highlighted by our trip to the Musée Cluny. One of my favorite parts of this museum was the room of heads and beheaded bodies. These statues have quite an interesting story, as they were once part of Notre Dame and represent the Kings of Judah. During the French Revolution, these statues were apparently mistaken for statues of French kings, and anti-royalist sentiment led to their decapitation and removal from Notre Dame.
Friday was July 4 and we celebrated by getting the best ice cream ever from Berthillon. We visited Sainte-Chapelle and Notre Dame, as well as Île de la Cité and Île Saint-Louis, which are located within the Seine. My favorite Friday faces are from the Pont Neuf, the oldest bridge in Paris. The bridge is decorated with hundreds of sculpted faces known as mascarons, all of which are different and have unique facial expressions.
On Saturday, we visited Versailles with MICEFA. Like the Louvre, there were many statues, paintings, and other decor that had faces. One of my favorite things was the Baths of Apollo. The original statues from the baths were moved inside the palace in order to better protect them, which allowed us to get an up close view of the scenes portrayed in the statues. However, we did not quite understand the story that was being told through the three statues until we visited the gardens and were able to view replicas of the statues within the setting of the Baths of Apollo. It was also really interesting to learn that the rock formation and caves of the Baths were entirely man-made.
My favorite faces from the last few days were at the Carnavalet Museum, which I visited on Sunday with my mom. This was a really interesting and fun museum to visit, and it had the added benefit of being a free place to go on a rainy day. The Carnavalet Museum tells the history of Paris through its four stories of exhibition space. They had many caricatures of popular writers, political figures, actors, etc. My favorite caricature was a pear-shaped and pear-themed vase meant to represent Louis Philippe I, the penultimate monarch of France.
The last few days have been really fun and filled with new experiences. Visiting the Louvre and Versailles knocked two things off my bucket list that I have been looking forward to seeing for a long time. Sainte-Chapelle was one of the most amazing buildings and interiors that I have ever seen and I would love to go back if the line wasn’t notoriously long. Let me know which face is your favorite!
This is such a creative take on a blog post! There are so many faces that we encounter in one day, especially now that we’re in such a big city surrounded by faces we would never see anywhere else. I love how you pointed out how exposed we are to a plethora of art pieces depicting faces.