Posts tagged ‘Paris’
Some Trip Photos from Another Penn Stater
Among the more than 50 Penn State travelers on our France/Germany trip were Joe Henry ’76 and his wife, Marilyn, from Huntingdon Valley, Pa. On the train from Paris to Strasbourg, Joe showed me some of the photos he had taken so far, and I’ve since seen some others on his Facebook page. With his permission, I thought I’d share a few of them with you.
One of the optional excursions on the first full day of the trip was a visit to the Palace of Versailles. I didn’t go—I went instead with the group that visited Père-Lachaise Cemetery—so I was glad to see some of the shots Joe got at Versailles. Here’s one of the Penn Staters descending on the palace:
Joe also has an excellent shot of the royal chapel at Versailles…
…and he got a great shot of a painting called “Napoleon Crowning Himself Emperor Before the Pope,” by Jacques-Louis David:
Apparently Pope Pius VII had come in from Rome to crown Napoleon, but, the story goes, (more…)
Where We’ve Been
In case you’re trying to figure out where all we’ve been on this Alumni Association trip, here’s a map provided by our travel partner, Collette Vacations. (If you click on it, you’ll get a bigger version.)
We started with two nights in Paris, then took the TGV high-speed train to Strasbourg, in the Alsace region of France. As you can see, Strasbourg is right on the France-Germany border, and has been considered part of France at some points in its history and part of Germany at other times. In fact, the city’s nationality changed five times in one century. As our local guide there put it: (more…)
The Eiffel Tower Lights, Captured on an iPhone 4
Quite a few of the passengers on this trip have iPhones, so I’ve enjoyed comparing notes with them about apps and about the complexities of using them when outside of the United States. (More on that another time.) But my favorite fellow traveler in that regard is Dan Madio, who has the new iPhone 4.
When we ate at the Eiffel Tower the other night (man, is that ever fun to say!), we got a chance to see the 10 p.m. light show. And Dan captured about 17 seconds of it on his new iPhone, which shoots HD video.
We think the video would be even crisper if not for the fact that he had to e-mail it to my iPhone and then I had to forward it to senior editor Ryan Jones, who is back at the office this week (sorry about your luck, Ryan—I sure am having a blast in Europe!). Ryan took care of getting it uploaded for us.
By the way, the cheering in the background is from soccer fans. The night we were at the Eiffel Tower was the night that Spain beat the Netherlands in the World Cup, and across the Seine from the Eiffel Tower was a big park—Trocadéro—where thousands of people were watching it on the big screen outdoors, in front of the Palais de Chaillot. Spain had just won the game when Dan shot the video.
Tina Hay, editor
Today’s Bit of Paris Trivia
The lion here sits at Place Denfert-Rochereau, a plaza just a few blocks up the street from our hotel. This morning on our bus tour of the city, our guide mentioned the name of the guy who sculpted him: Frédéric Bartholdi.
If Bartholdi’s name sounds familiar, well, our guide talked about that too. Bartholdi was the French sculptor who designed the Statue of Liberty.
We learned many other cool facts on the bus tour. Remind me to tell you who’s buried in the Pantheon and what Rodin’s The Thinker is thinking about. (I’ll save those for a future update.)
Tina Hay, editor
I’d Love to Join You for Dinner, but I’m Eating at the Eiffel Tower Tonight
It’s Sunday morning here in Paris, and we’re about to set off for our first excursion as a group: a bus tour of the city. Although I’ve been exploring on my own for the past few days, there is sooooo much I haven’t gotten to, so I’m looking forward to getting a sort of “Paris Sampler” this morning. Also, the temperatures over here have been in the 90s, so the idea of an air-conditioned bus is immensely appealing.
I’m also looking forward to getting to know the other Penn State travelers—there are more than 50 of them, and we all met for the first time last night at the Penn State Alumni Association reception. (The photo here shows our faculty hosts, Ronnie and Sophie, introducing themselves to the travelers.)
The bus tour ends around lunchtime, and then participants can either have the afternoon to themselves or take advantage of one of the optional excursions: there’s a bus trip to Versailles; Ronnie is leading a walking architectural tour of medieval Paris; and Sophie is leading a visit to Cimetière du Père-Lachaise, where I get my second shot at seeing the graves of Jim Morrison, Edith Piaf, and Abelard and Heloise, among others. By the way, Sophie says it’s traditional to take lipstick and kiss the grave of Oscar Wilde—if that’s not a photo op, I’d like to know what is.
The evening activities don’t sound too shabby, either: A boat tour on the Seine followed by dinner at a restaurant on the Eiffel Tower. Check back tomorrow for a full report. Film at 11!
Tina Hay, editor
P.S. You can see all of the postings from this Alumni Association trip collected in one place here and photos from the trip here.
Travels with Sophie
The sepulchre of French chocolatier Emile Justin Menier at Paris' Pere-Lachaise Cemetery.
The actual Alumni Association part of our trip starts later tonight, but meanwhile I’m continuing to check out Paris on my own—and yesterday I had a chance to do some exploring with Sophie de Schaepdrijver, one of the two Penn State faculty hosts for the trip.
Sophie plans to lead interested trip participants on a walk at Père-Lachaise Cemetery on Sunday, so we did a little scouting run out there yesterday afternoon. It’s an immense cemetery with many entrances, and Sophie wanted to figure out which Metro stop was closest, which entrance would be best, etc. As for me, I just love old cemeteries with impressive sculptures, and I’ve heard Père-Lachaise is one of the best. Plus, I wanted to see the famous graves: Jim Morrison, (more…)
Beware of Scooters…
…and, really, any kind of traffic in Paris. Cars, taxis, scooters, people on bicycles all come zooming around the corner fast enough to make you take the “walk” and “wait” signs very seriously.
I always love to see what people in Europe are driving. Here in Paris the traffic is dominated, perhaps not surprisingly, by Peugeots, Renaults, and Citroens. You’ve got your Renault Clio, your Renault Megane, your Renault Twingo, and your Renault Scenic—cars that you don’t see much (if at all) in the U.S. Yesterday I spotted a Fiat Panda. I’ve been on the lookout for the Honda Jazz, which is the European counterpart to the Honda Fit (the car I drive back home), but so far I haven’t seen a single one. Not sure what’s up with that.
And motor scooters are everywhere. I’ve seen them driven by men and women, guys in business suits, even a guy talking on his cell phone while steering with the other hand. Today I saw the guy at left who had his puppy on his scooter.
I’ve posted some more photos of Paris to the magazine’s Facebook page, including more photos from yesterday (Notre Dame and Jardin du Luxembourg mostly) and some from this morning’s visit to the Catacombs. Just go www.facebook.com/thepennstater and click on the Photos tab.
Tina Hay, editor
Greetings from Paris
How often to I get to say that? But sure enough, as I write this, I’m sitting in my hotel room in Paris’s Left Bank (or Rive Gauche), looking out over … well, actually, I don’t know what the buildings are that I’m seeing from here, but I’m still new here—I haven’t even been in town for 24 hours yet.
(Off in the distance I can see some sort of small modernistic dome with blue lights on it—anyone have any idea what that might be?)
And, no, I can’t see the Eiffel Tower from my hotel room. But I did take the photo you see here (more…)
Dreaming of Europe
I.M. Pei's Louvre Pyramid, in the courtyard outside the Louvre in Paris
The other day I had a chance to meet Sophie de Schaepdrijver and Ronnie Hsia, the two Penn State history/religious studies faculty members who are hosting the Alumni Association’s trip to France and Germany next month. I’m going along on that trip to keep a blog, take photos, and maybe bring back a story for the magazine. And with the husband-and-wife team of Sophie and Ronnie helming the trip, I think we’re going to have a terrific experience.
We start with a few days in Paris, and although a lot of activities are already planned for us in the city through the Alumni Association and the travel company (Collette Vacations), Sophie and Ronnie have some ideas as well.
Ronnie is planning to take interested participants on a strolling tour of medieval Paris, while Sophie has offered to take a group to the city’s famous Père Lachaise cemetery. Given that I’m a fan of old cemeteries and of taking photos of funerary art, I actually had Père Lachaise on my wish list already, so I’m excited at the thought of going there with someone who knows a lot about it.
In a letter introducing herself to the Penn State travelers, Sophie wrote: “…you are welcome to accompany me to Père Lachaise cemetery on the outskirts of Paris—a vast park-like, hilly place, most atmospheric, where many celebrities are buried (Edith Piaf, Oscar Wilde, Jim Morrison) and which was the site of fierce violence during the Commune uprising of 1871.”
The theatre in tiny Oberammergau, Germany, where the Passion Play is staged every 10 years.
Which, of course, made me go to Wikipedia to read up on the Commune uprising. And that’s what’s so appealing—I can already tell that Ronnie and Sophie are going to add a very cool dimension to the trip. They’ve suggested books for the travelers to read in advance, for example. They will be doing informal lectures on our bus rides. And they both seem to know a good bit about the sometimes-controversial Oberammergau Passion Play, which we’ll see on the last day of the trip. (The residents of the German village of Oberammergau have been putting on the Passion Play every 10 years since the 1600s.)
Ronnie, in his letter to the Penn State travelers, wrote: “I have taught courses in the religious history of Europe in the period of the Renaissance and Reformation. In addition to my interest in the Protestant Reformation and Catholic reform in the 16th and 17th centuries, I have written on the relationship between Jews and Christians; therefore, I am particularly excited to be attending with you the Oberammergau Passion Play, which I have read so much about, but have never seen.”
We leave in three weeks, and I’m looking forward to sending you updates and photos from what should be an amazing trip.
Tina Hay, editor
NEXT: Passion Play Passes Muster with Both Catholics and Jews
The Season of Oberammergau is Here
Every year after the December holidays I buy one of those Page-a-Day calendars at a half-price sale, and the theme of this year’s calendar is “1,000 Places to See Before You Die.” The vast majority are places I can only dream of visiting, but the entry for this weekend got my attention: It’s somewhere I’ll be going this summer.
I’ll be joining the Alumni Association’s trip to Oberammergau, a small village in Germany where the townspeople stage a version of the Passion Play every 10 years. The legend is that the villagers agreed to this back in 1637, in exchange for being spared the plague that was sweeping their region.
For our traveling group, the Passion Play will be the culmination of a 10-day trip that starts in Paris (woo hoo!) and includes stops in Strasbourg and Wurzburg, as well as side trips to some smaller villages known for their beer, wine, and cathedrals (not necessarily in that order).
The cool part—besides how much fun it is to say “Oberammergau”—is that the trip hosts will be two faculty members in Penn State’s history and religious studies department. Their commentary should add an excellent extra dimension to the trip. My job is to take pictures, blog along the way (more about that later), and perhaps bring back a story for the magazine. Needless to say, I’m really looking forward to the trip!
Tina Hay, editor
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