Grenoble

With a population of 300,000, Grenoble stands 13th largest city in France.
In reality, it's quite small. I can see the whole city from the fortified mountain, La Bastille.
Grenoble is famous for its language school. Many Chinese flock here to learn French. I've never encountered so many Chinese anywhere else in France. It's kind of odd.
Food is good here, people are nice, things are cheaper than in Paris, but many barely speak any English. My mom made a comment about retiring and moving here. I think she's crazy.




Grenoble is very much alive in its art and history. I wandered around in La Bastille and found a gallery about Nazi's in WWII.



In the donjon of La Bastille, I also found a very small gallery of insulation art, "Music". This is my favorite piece out of the 12. The string of a red balloon is attached to the needle of an old record machine moving in a constant pace. The room has a clear sound of the record needle moving back and forth while the red figure moves side to side in front of the window.



It was incredibly cool to see an excavated site very well preserved inside of a museum.
At Musée de I'Ancien Evěché of Grenoble, I walked into the remain of a Roman city wall build in 3rd century and a water fountain inside of the baptist house build in 4th century.

La Bastille

I took the world's first urban aerial lift 475 meters up to the fortified mountain. At La Bastille, visitors get a great view of the city Grenoble and the Alps. This fortified castle is a simple but beautiful architecture. It has quite a history. And I had a ghosty experience 4 floors down its donjon.

Lotus de Monet

Orangerie has 8 largest paintings of Monet's water lilies. It also presents a few earlier works of Picasso and the others. We were completely wowed sitting in the center of two rooms and watching Monet in 360.

From Old to New

I ran into this unknown building near Musée Picasso in Paris. The stone wall had trace of fire. Two heavy wooden doors standing at 20 feet tall were carved with heads of Madusa. Wicked!



In Marché Vernaison, the oldest flee market in Paris, I bought a stamped and written postcard for 2 Euro. This place is a huge maze. I walked for 2 hours, and couldn't find good old marbles to add to my collection.



Did you know that the light on the very top of Eiffel Tower at night is copyrighted (by the French government I think)? Go figure.

Art or Not

France has the greatest number of museums in the world. It has brought lots of experience and creativity into making great museums.

One place makes this trip to France all worthy ⎯ Centre Georges Pompidou. The museum presents amazing works from young artists to the masters in modern art. I saw some of the finest work that totally blew my mind away and overthrew my prejudice toward contemporary art of being "a compound of random meaningless junks". They are not junks when cleverly executed with originality.

The structure of this museum is a piece of work. All the pipes of the architecture is literally outside painted in different colors. One of the walls is completely see through showing off the sixth-floor escalator. A giant installation art greets you at the front door. Elegant neon signs guiding visitors to the left toward the museum collection and to the right into the galleries. The café, bookstore, and library inside the building are opened to the public to excess. It's a museum so fun to be in! Although it doesn't offer discount to students, it's worth every penny for.



You can't talk about France and not its food. A good dessert is definitely the high point of a French meal. This dessert has pineapple in layers, strawberries on the top, coconut mousse in between, and grapes around the plate. It's too pretty to look at, and too yummy to bite into. :>



I was on my way for some hot chocolate when I bumped into this giant billboard at the Madeline district. After shopping for too many museums and antique buildings, I forgot that Paris is also on top of the game in fashion. But I did took photos of the LV and Ferrari store front for my sis. :>

Louvre et Pompidou

In Musée du Louvre, Psyche and Cupid is surrounded by female Japanese tourists. I heard the word "kawaii" and "romantacu" several times.



Looking out the window of Denon Hall, I can clearly see the left wing and the center courtyard of the Louvre. It takes a full day to throughly walk the building. It's huge, but it shouldn't be the excuse not giving students discounts! :<



Shooting at the reflection off a piece of glass on the 6th floor of Pompidou, I got me, and the Eiffel. Yaybee~

Paris

Today is my 4th day in France, and I'm sorry I can't update my blog everyday. French simply don't use Internet as much as we do. A wired spot is hard to find, and the one in my hotel room in Paris is 8 Euro or 11 USD per hour! Expensive!
Today I’m in Nante, 2 hours southwest of Paris by train. Price is slightly acceptable here.

Oh, Paris! Hhm… Where should I start?
There is too much to see. So far I’ve visited Arc de Triomphe, Eiffel Tower, Notre-Dame, Musée d’Orsay, Jeu de Paume, Musée du Louvre, and Centre Georges Pompidou. The art is magnificent, the food is great, and the weather is perfect.
Should I start with the cute French biker I met on the metro? Or the crazy Mona Lisa fans at the Louvre? How about the amazing architecture and collections of Picasso, Mondrian, Dali, Rothko, Alexander Calder, Diane Arbus, and Lee Friedlander at Pompidou?

Of course I’ve shot too many! I’m exhausted by the end of every day! So there! I’ll post some whenever I can. Let me know what you think. Or what you want to see. :>





Place de la Concorde, a beautiful plaza sit between Musée du Louvre and the end of Avenus des Champs Elysées. Other than beautiful statues and fountains, it has a 75-feet-tall 3300-year-old golden-tip Egyptian stele and a giant fairs wheel.



Anyone who has watched The Da Vinci Code would recognize the glass pyramid by I.M. Pei in front of Musée du Louvre. It took me 5 hours to walk through two out of the three halls.
The Louvre has about 350,000 pieces of collection, but the Metropolitan Museum in NY has a better Egyptian gallery. Peronsally, the paintings and statues in Italy are far more impressive.



Musée d’Orsay is great! I walked in with my art-related student ID for free! The museum used to be a huge train station in 1900, so the architecture is incredibly beautiful and unique.
I had the privilege of seeing some great art of Picasso, Monet, Degas, Renoir, and Van Gogh.



Paris is not always black and white, but the weather is. It’s quite chilly in the morning at this time of the year. But down in the metro is sweating hot. I had to keep putting on and taking off my jacket and scarf all day long. Two busy French flies are getting warm up at the park.
Sometimes, you wish you had a macro on. :>

Hercy

I finally had a few days to spent with my sister at the family reunion in Sun Moon Lake, Nantou.

Hunan, China

Sorry for the long wait! Here it is!
Click on the title, or go to http://nancywangphoto.com/hunan.html

The caption is in Mandarin.
Let me know what you think. :>

Kitty and I

I just realiz that people might still be expecting more photos from Hunan.
Sorry. I've been back to Taiwan for days. Here's the last one in Phoenix Town.
When I finish editing, I'll post the link.