pass the french toast: walk 4: of art, war, and world's fairs: invalides, musee rodin, tour eiffel

friday may 11.
we had kind of been afraid of this walk because the book says its really long and could take 2 days. but it actually ended up being one of my favorites. (and it didn't take too long either)

Pont Alexander III.

Pont Alexander III was built for the 1900 World Fair. It's very elaborate and covered in gold statues. It represents the friendship between France and Russia, thus the name.

Outside the Rodin museum there's a light pole where students put their stickers from the museum. We added ours afterwards.

The famous Thinker. I thought with him.

I love this museum. It has a garden full of Rodin sculptures and flowers and fountains and bees, with a view of the Eiffel Tower..and then a beautiful house (where Rodin lived), full of even more sculptures and even some paintings. Best part is, students get in for free.

I absolutely love how expressive the hands are in all of his sculptures.

inside was mostly studies and small sculptures. and of course the random van gogh, because why not.

Napoleon's tomb. It was, like really big.

Next we went to the Invalides, to see Napoleon's tomb. The guy was going to make us pay like 10 euros to see it, but he decided our French was so good that he let us in for free. Or maybe it was just because we were cute.

Lunch on the champs de mars. In the rain.

The Eiffel Tower was the tallest building in the world at the time it was built in 1889 until 1930. It was supposed to be torn down in 1909. The only reason they left it is because it was useful as a radio tower. It is repainted by hand every seven years. The patented shade of brown that has been used since 1968 is called "Eiffel Tower Brown" but in the past it has been painted many different colors including yellow, orange, and red. (I guess I didn't know that because the older pictures are all in black and white.)