Boat tour of the Seine!

Salut!
With AYA (the organization bringing me to Paris), we did a lovely tour of Paris by boat on the Seine yesterday.  As it has been quite hot and sunny lately, it was quite nice to be out on the water!!  I did a similar tour when I was here with my high school, but it's always fun to see Paris from the river rather than the streets.  And of course many of its most famous icons are along the Seine, so it's a great way to see a lot of the monuments that are rather far apart by land transportation.  I don't think I have anything new and profound to say about these monuments, but they are always pretty to look at, so I'll cut right to the good stuff: photos!

The Louvre...

 

still the Louvre...

And of course these two photos only capture a very small part of it!!  It's apparently the third-largest museum in the world.  I have no idea which two museums are larger!  Although the Louvre wasn't big enough for King Louis XIV, who commissioned Versailles to be built as the new royal palace to replace the (too-small!!) Louvre.  There is no way either of these buildings will fit into one camera shot except from the air, as far as I have been able to tell.

Part of the Musée d'Orsay, a converted train station that's home to many Impressionist works.

Assemblée Nationale, one of France's chief govt. buildings

La Tour Eiffel behind Le Pont Royal

La Tour Eiffel again!

 steeple of the first American cathedral in Paris

Notre Dame!

Notre Dame from the side

detail of the Pont Neuf*

Hôtel de Ville (city hall)

*Here are two interesting factoids about the Pont Neuf:

• Although it's called the Pont Neuf, which literally translates to New Bridge, it's actually the oldest (remaining) bridge in Paris.
• Take a good look at the heads in the photo above.  They're just a few examples of the heads that line the length of this bridge, on both sides.  Supposedly when this bridge was built, the first stone (not wooden) bridge in Paris, people (including some courtesans) were worried that stone would be too heavy and that it would fall into the river.  Thus people were reluctant to use the bridge, so the king had someone carve the heads of the nay-sayers into the side of the bridge...  it's not a very flattering likeness, I think!  But kind of a fun form of revenge!