Here are a bunch of pictures from our trip to Paris!  As with the Ireland/Scotland pictures I'm doing this in table format and you can view whichever images you'd like without having to wait for them all to load on one page. Also as with Ireland/Scotland, it was overcast most of the time, so many of the images are dark.  I've lightened a few up, but most came out pretty well.
 

Paris, April 16th-20th 2004
P013	OK, let's start with a bit of history.  Louis the IX was king of France back in the 13th century.  He was a very religious guy, and he purchased quite a few relics, one of which was the crown of thorns worn by Jesus.  He spent more on the relic than on the chapel that he built to house it (more about that chapel later).  He also bought splinters from the cross, and other holy items which are all housed in the treasury that's inside Notre Dame cathedral.  So, this is a picture of 3 of the reliquaries (containers made to house holy objects).  The one in the middle, I believe, contains a fragment of the crown of thorns.  The treasury has many many reliquaries, all full of interesting stuff...one has both thigh bones of a certain saint.
P014	Same here...the one in the middle contains a fragment of the crown of thorns.  It should be noted that for all of his troubles King Louis IX was canonized, and is now St. Louis (and yes, he's the guy the city in Missouri is named after).  To read more about all of this, visit http://www.fathom.com/feature/190140/
P016	The pieta altar at the rear of the cathedral.
P017	The beautifully carved front entrance to Notre Dame cathedral.
P018	Notre Dame cathedral from the south (the main entrance with the twin towers is to the left in this image).  You can see one of the amazing rose windows well here.  This is the one that's seen in image P067 from the inside.
P019	This shot is taken from the same spot as the previous one, rotating just a little bit to the left.  This is the tower that we climbed up, and you can barely see a little pointy thing up at the very top-left...we were right beside that thingy.
P020	Now we've walked to the right, and this shot is from the garden that's to the east of the cathedral.  You can see one of the amazing flying buttresses (one of the long thin diagonal bridges of stone that help support the building).
P021	Same shot, different angle.
P022	Now we're back around to the front, and there I am, posing stiffly.  You can see the three entrances to the cathedral as well as the twin towers and one of the three huge rose windows.
P023	OK, now we've moved to a different church altogether.  Hidden behind a bunch of big palatial office buildings is the Chapel of St. Michel.  It's really a small small building, but is absolutely amazing in that it is almost entirely made of stained glass supported by thin columns of stone.  This is the chapel that St. Louis constructed to house his artifacts.  We got there near sunset, and the light streaming in was beautiful.  This is a shot of the intricately carved wooden altar in front of some of the stained glass windows.  Much of the glass still dates back to the 13th century!  Amazing considering that the revolutionaries smashed much of everything back in the 18th century.
P024	This is the rose window in the Chapel of St. Michel.  Again, note that there are windows on both sides as well.
P025	OK, this is my favorite picture of them all...my honey in front of the Eiffel Tower.  Note that this is Michelle after a transatlantic flight without a shower or change of clothes...we arrived at about 11am and the weather reports said it would be the only really pretty day of our trip, so we headed right out sightseeing!  I'm happy to blow this up, frame it, and send it along at the low low price of $100 each!  j/k
P026	Neat, huh?  The little red and yellow dots you can see inside are elevators, each of which can hold about 30 people...this thing is BIG, and was the tallest structure in the world until the Empire State Building was built.
P027	OK, so I convinced Michelle to climb up the Eiffel Tower!  I think there are about 1600 steps in all.  This is a view to the west (I think).
P028	This is me most of the way up.
P029	A view to the northeast with the Seine in the foreground and Sacre Coeur cathedral in the distance on the hill.
P030	And now we're magically transported one day in the future and a few miles away to Sacre Coeur.  This was built at the beginning of the 20th century in celebration of not being wiped out by the Prussians.  Note, the Bavarians had little to do with this one.  That's me with the bowlegs.
P031	That's Michelle in the orange.  We don't have pictures from up top, but we climbed all the way up to the top.  It was a windy and overcast blustery day.
P032	A pair of doors at Sacre Coeur.  The amount of detail everywhere in Paris was amazing, with one of our friends (Greg, who you'll meet soon) ultimately saying "look, another freakin' statue" every time we turned a corner.
P033	This is Michelle climbing up the tight spiral staircase.  About halfway up there was a little niche where you could rest, but it was occupied by a couple of pot-smoking teens...
P034	OK, we've moved again...we met Greg and Rita (find out more about them at www.thesotos.net/gregrita) and went out for a walk...they were staying near the Champs Elysee (the famous shopping street), and therefore near the Arc de Triomphe.  This is us on top of the Arc with the Eiffel Tower in the background.
P036	And here are the 4 of us.
P038	Now we're at the Louvre which is a big gigantic enormous mammoth museum.  It's got three long wings and four floors per wing...gigantic.  We spent about 2/3 of a day there looking at everything imaginable.  The building itself was a palace, and so in addition to the amazing art, the architecture itself was great to look at.  Here's a random shot of the ceiling.
P039	What we didn't know initially is that the Louvre's art stops in the 18th century, and the newer stuff is across the street at the Musee d'Orsay.  Since Michelle's a big fan of impressionism, we spent the rest of the day there looking at art by Monet, Manet, Van Gogh, Cezanne, etc. (this is a Monet).  One thing that was impressive was that the artwork at this museum was much more impressive in real life than at the Louvre.  The Mona Lisa, for instance, at the Louvre is actually quite dark and smaller than you'd imagine.  On the other hand, the impressionist pieces almost glowed.
P040	And this is another Monet...again, pictures don't do it justice.
P041	This is looking out of a window at the Musee d'Orsay across the Seigne towards the Louvre.
P042	Another window, another angle.
P043	A lovely picture of Greg, Rita, and myself at the Musee d'Orsay beneath a sculpture.
P044	Michelle and I grinning happily at the Orsay.
P045	THIS is what the weather was like that day!
P046	Michelle's gotten the umbrella back under control.  The arch in the distance is near the entrance to the Louvre.
P048	Now, we're at the Invalides Dome, which is a massive church that's been dedicated to veterans of France's wars.  This is in the rotunda, and the big brown structure you see is Napoleon's tomb!  Why so big?  ‘Like those of an Egyptian pharaoh, the remains were contained in six coffins: the first of tin, the second of mahogany, the third and fourth of lead, the fifth of ebony and the sixth of oak. These were then placed in the huge sarcophagus of red granite’
P050	Also in the rotunda are smaller chapels with the tombs of his two brothers and military leaders from his time and later.  This is the sarcophagus of one of his brothers (Jerome, King of Spain).
P051	The tomb of WW1 General Lyautey, who spent a ton of time in Morocco, hence the decorations.
P052	Marshal Foch led the French forces during WW1.  This is a very moving sarcophagus as you can hopefully see.
P054	Napoleon's bother, Joseph, King of Westphalia.
P056	Again, Napoleon's tomb, from the side.
P058	Roy & Rita & the tomb.
P059	This is the courtyard of the building where the tomb is housed (directly beneath the golden dome).  The buildings to either side were veterans hospitals.
P060	And this is a shot 180 degrees from the last one, looking out towards downtown Paris.  The weather was much nicer that morning, although it was still nippy.
P061	The French flag.  The red and blue are from the coat of arms of Paris, and the white was the color of royalty.  For more than you ever wanted to know, visit http://flagspot.net/flags/fr.html.
P062	An intricate wooden carved piece from within the church of St. Germaine des Pres, a smaller church from the 12th century that we stumbled upon while walking through town.
P063	This is the Conciergerie, which was once a 14th century palace, and was later turned into a prison...this is where Marie Antoinette was kept until she was beheaded.
P064	So, on our last day in Paris we were walking back to our hotel and decided to stop by the Notre Dame cathedral one last time because it was so awesome.  Two good things happened...first, there was a mass going on which you can see in this blurry picture...what's neat is that you can make out the light from the stained glass windows all around, and you can get an appreciation for just how high the ceiling really is.
P067	Probably the best picture I took (the Michelle/Eiffel shot notwithstanding).  This is from the inside of the cathedral to the left of the altar.  The large round rose window you can see is the one that is pictured up at P018.  The interior of the cathedral is shaped like a cross, with the altar at the center.  There are 3 rose windows:  one at the "bottom" of the cross (where the main entrance is), and one at each of the two sides of the cross (which is called the transept of the cathedral).
P068	The second good thing that happened at Notre Dame was that the long long long long line to climb up to the top was all gone, due in part to the cruddy cold windy rainy weather, and due in part to the time of day (~7pm).  So we climbed first up to the area between the two towers (the little bridge you can see up in P022).  This is Michelle and 2 of the famous gargoyles that guard the cathedral.  Michelle's the one on the right.
P069	And here she is alone, overlooking the Seine.
P070	Now we're beneath the right tower (again reference P022) looking straight up.  Note the impressive stonework everywhere and the gargoyles way overhead.
P071	This is now looking inward from between the two towers towards the spire and the green bronze statues along the roof.
P072	And then finally we climbed ALL the way to the top of the tower on the right, and this is a picture I took from behind one of the gargoyles...another of my favorites.
P073	Once again, Notre Dame cathedral from the ground.
If you have any questions about the trip or about any of the history or details, feel free to email me.  Otherwise get yourself on a plane and go to Paris for yourself!