Prague, Czech Republic - the rough version

I will confess now, so as to avoid your future heartbreak... I went to Prague simply because I was going to an IAMX concert.  And I got so vigorously trashed at the concert that a lot of my tourism was conducted as an afterthought while severely jaded and hobbling around on a torn calf muscle.

But here goes...first up a quick photographic duck through the grounds of Prague Castle...

Here is yet another gold gilded gate... with requisite cherubs and such finery...

And of course the mythological hero slaying some poor fool for daring to gaze upon the gold with his filthy beggar eyes.

Haha, I hope you have the correct permissions to observe my shininess!

These guys are rather a lot like the guys at Buckingham Palace, only they use the letter Z way more often in their words.

Oh look another massive Gothic styled church...um, yes, we have seen these quite a few times now.

This one has some brightly coloured graffiti though!

This is the view from the castle grounds... you can see in the distance the Charles Bridge... its rather a big deal which is why I have no dedicated photos of it.

Then we scurried away from the seriousness of the castle..

And encountered this glorious example of street lampery!

And this... um... I don't know what this is trying to be, but it was unnerving.

Then we apparently teleported inside the world famous Astronomical Clock, which is so famous I have no pictures of that either.  But I did take this rather vertigo inducing picture of part of the main square.

And this one too, which shows the big important statue I can't remember the name or meaning of.

There was also this church, it had some significance, something about a god.

Oh good grief what this? probably some other religious thing or a town hall.... I don't know.

OH! But here are some things I do remember.

IAMX were absolutely amazing as always...even during the sound check I got to see before the show

And Chris Corner was a truly awesome man, the other meet and greet visitors and I chatted with him for a little while, we all swooned like teenage girls for a little bit, and then I watched the best gig of my life.

Ok guys that's all I have for this entry... I am actually heading back to Prague next month, so I will try to document things a little better this time around and either update this article, or write a much better one then.

References:
Astronomical Clock - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prague_Astronomical_Clock
Prague Castle - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prague_Castle
Charles Bridge - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Bridge
IAMX - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IAMX
Chris Corner - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chris_Corner

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Château de Versailles, France

The Palace of Versailles is located around 20 kilometres away from Paris to the south-west, and is easily reachable by train from Paris.  Upon arriving at the train station you will immediately be accosted by various ticket sellers and tour guides offering "hassle free" ticketing for the Palace.

Honestly, I am not so sure it really requires that... we simply walked to the Palace and purchased tickets ourselves, there was no huge wait, and the process was quite painless.  

Keep in mind there are actually several different ticket options to choose from.

Trianon Palaces and Marie-Antoinette Estate: €10

Grand Trianon and gardens of the Grand Trianon, Petit Trianon, Queen's hamlet, French and Anglo-Chinese gardens, French pavilion, temple of Love...

The Palace: €15

The Palace's most famous places: the Hall of Mirrors, Grand Apartments of the King and of the Queen, King's Bedchamber...Exhibitions are included in the price of the ticket.

You also receive an audio tour guide which is available in multiple languages.

The Passport: €18

To discover the Versailles Estate in all its glory, the Passport gives you admission to all the Palace tours : grounds, Trianon palaces and Marie-Antoinette's Estate.  Exhibitions are included in the price of the ticket.
+ Musical Fountain Show, Musical Gardens (from April to October) €25.

Hidden Versailles: €16

Guided by a lecturer, you will discover the private apartments of Louis XV and Louis XVI, the Royal Opera or the Royal Chapel. These places are open only to accompanied groups.

Almost everything about Versailles screamed at me justification for the French Revolution, in my travels around Europe I have seen all manner of excess and gaudy gold encrusted fences.  But everything about this palace just screams obnoxiousness.  I honestly don't know how they ever lived with themselves.

Look at that thing.... seriously guys... its a gate!  Anyway, enough of my revulsion and on with the history lesson...
Originally Louis XIII had built a hunting lodge on the site in 1624 after being introduced to the area by its owner Albert de Gondi, in 1632 he purchased the land outright from the Gondi family and began expanding the lodge into a complete château.  This would later form the basis of the palace as it stands today.
When his son Louis XIV became king he set about transforming and expanding on the original château making it one of the biggest palaces in the world.
And in 1682 he moved the French court to the palace establishing it as the center of leadership.

 ‘A Toutes Les Gloires de la France’ – ‘To all the glories of France’
This was inscribed on the buildings during Louis XIV's reign between the years 1682 and 1715, and the palace really was testament to the French empire at that time.

Many years, and many wars, and many kings of France went on... the palace continued to be developed all the way through to 1788 and King Louis XVI... and this is where things started to get really interesting.
From 1776 Louis XVI had been supporting the American efforts to achieve their independence from Great Britain, this of course had come at quite a heavy cost, mostly to the citizenry.  This during a time period where the famous "Encyclopédie" had been released only a few years earlier promoting the idea of Enlightenment which caused enormous upset among the French nobility.

"If exclusive privileges were not granted, and if the financial system would not tend to concentrate wealth, there would be few great fortunes and no quick wealth. When the means of growing rich is divided between a greater number of citizens, wealth will also be more evenly distributed; extreme poverty and extreme wealth would be also rare." (Wealth, Diderot) - An excerpt from Encyclopédie which neatly summarized the situation in France at the time.

The people were paying excessive taxes to help save the country from the enormous debts it had incurred during the Seven Year War and the American Revolutionary War while the aristocracy paying significantly less tax were painting their ceilings gold.

So as we walked through the palace and looked at the numerous statues of French nobility taking on such mythic poses as above... I was really quite angry.  I had never really given much thought to the French Revolution, I never studied it in school and it was just a passing note in history to me.

But suddenly it all made sense... and I had to fight the urge to throw a few flaming torches onto the ridiculous furnishings myself.

Even their table lamps had to be chandeliers... these people were asking for it.

The Hall of Mirrors... quite possibly the most obnoxious room in the entire palace....the principal feature of the hall are the seventeen mirror-clad arches that reflect the seventeen arcaded windows that overlook the gardens. Each arch contains twenty-one mirrors with a total complement of 357 used in the decoration of the Hall of Mirrors.

This travel blog seems to have taken a very negative turn for the worst... and I really am trying to write something nice, to encourage you to visit this place.  But every time I think back on it I just want to slap a rich French person.

Look how smug she is right now... she won't be smirking like that when she is chased off by an angry mob.

The Queen's bedchamber, another fine example of excessive extravagance. There is a barely discernible 'hidden door' in the corner near the jewel cabinet through which Marie Antoinette escaped the night of 5/6 October 1789 when the Paris mob stormed Versailles.

Oh such bravery and valor depicted on the walls... here young master Napoleon Bonaparte fought somewhere around 15,000 Ottomans at Abu Qir, Egypt.  Though the painting makes it look like he managed this alone I think he may have had a few friends help out.
However he certainly makes a mockery of Louis XVI, who couldn't even manage 7,000 angry French women who arrived in Versailles with various canons and assorted weapons.

This is my friend Chrissy being a photographer... look how dashing she is! Like a secret agent!

Sadly when we visited the gardens were closed... so we really missed out on rather a lot of the grounds which would have been more interesting to me.  I shall go back sometime to visit them and post an update.

Who knows... by then I may stop hating everything this place represents.

NEXT UP! PRAGUE!

References:
Palace of Versailles - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palace_of_Versailles
Louis XVI - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Louis_XVI
Marie Antoinette - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marie-Antoinette
Age of Englightenment - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Age_of_Enlightenment
Encyclopédie - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Encyclopedie
The French Revolution - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/French_Revolution


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Famous Graves, and Cliche Landmarks, Paris, France

The Paris Blogs... EXTREME TOURISM filler entry!

So... when we left we were still roaming around Montmartre and had just finished the visit to Espace Dali... next we had a brief stop for a coffee at one of the cafes near Place du Tertre, which is where I took this cute photo of their neat wall painting.

Then we began walking down the hill towards Montmartre Cemetery...

This random guy phasing through the wall was pretty cool... much more interesting than random graffiti.

Random shot while strolling through Montmartre... and finally we made it to the cemetery where my friend visited the grave of Vaslav Nijinsky a very famous Russian dancer, member of the Imperial Russian Ballet, witness to the Bloody Sunday massacre of St Petersburg, and schizophrenic.

I must confess this is one of the most beautiful gravestones I have ever seen...

Although this one has a certain sorrowful beauty to it too...
So having found the correct grave here, we started the trip towards Père Lachaise Cemetery to find the graves of Oscar Wilde (writer and poet) and Jim Morrison (musician and poet).

Passing by the Moulin Rouge during the day, which felt quite strange actually to see it so quiet, for contrast I include a picture of it at night...

Eventually we arrived at Père Lachaise Cemetery, and after quite a lot of walking, we found Jim Morrison's grave, it is tucked away behind several other plots, and is fenced off to prevent the public from causing any further damage to it.

His grave was quite simple really, but all around it people have written messages over the years, many peace signs and such are scattered around the immediate area, much as cemetery staff hate that.

This is Oscar Wilde's incredibly fancy tomb, which is now shielded from the kisses of his admirers since the chemicals in their lip sticks were actually eroding the stone masonry... keep that in mind people, you smear this stuff on your lips!

Aaaaand just to round this post out... here are your incredibly cliche landmarks!
Unfortunately for both, by the time I got to them conditions were not ideal and I was really unsteady on my leg, so both photos are quite bad actually... oh well its a perfect excuse to go back sometime soon and take some much nicer ones.

The Eiffel Tower did actually look somewhat pretty in the fog and hail, but there was no way I was bothering to climb up it in that weather.

And the Arc de Triomphe, I don't really know what I thought about this, it certainly is a big stone structure.... I personally think the Brandenburg Gate is prettier.

And just in case you feel studious about any of the topics in this super fast update, check the links below!

References:
Montmartre - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Montmartre
Montmartre Cemetery - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cimetiere_de_Montmartre
Vaslav Nijinsky - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vaslav_Nijinsky
Bloody Sunday in St Petersburg - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bloody_Sunday_(1905)
Moulin Rouge - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moulin_Rouge
Père Lachaise Cemetery - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pere_Lachaise_Cemetery
Jim Morrison - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jim_Morrison
Oscar Wilde - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oscar_Wilde
Eiffel Tower - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eiffel_Tower
Arc de Triomphe - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arc_de_Triomphe


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Espace Dali, Paris, France

Part Three of the Paris Blog!

Espace Dali Montmartre
Address: 11 rue Poulbot, 75018, Paris
Nearest Metro: Anvers
Opening Daily: 10.00–18.00
Cost: Adults 11 euro, Children 6 euro, or free with the ParisPass card

After our visit to the Sacre Coueur we then took a very brief walk around the hill to Espace Dali, which is a fantastic collection of sculptures and paintings by master surrealist Salvador Dali.

So for a little history, in case you have been unfortunate enough to have never heard of Salvador Dali...
Born in the Catalonia region of Spain as Salvador Domingo Felipe Jacinto Dalí i Domènech, 1st Marqués de Dalí de Pubol, on the 11th of May 1904.  And known simply as Salvador Dali, this man was a visionary within the art community.  He was a painter, photographer, film maker, sculptor and all-round eccentric hero.
(NOTE: I have used the excellent description texts below from the Dali Sculpture Exhibition website, these descriptions are placed in quotes for clarity, a link to the full site is available in the reference links)

In 1931 he painted probably his most famous painting "The Persistence of Memory" (there is a link to this in the reference section) which featured the melting clocks for the first time, here is a sculpture called "The Nobility of Time" featuring the clock in a slightly different way.

"The terminology, "the crown of a watch" is assumed to mean a mechanical device that allows us to set the hands and wind the timepiece. Time, however, according to a Dalinian watch, has no internal power or motion. Given this watch's lack of movement, the crown is interpreted as a royal crown adorning the watch, clearly identifying time's mastery over human beings, rather than being an object of utility."

This sculpture is based on "Alice in Wonderland", Dali also created a series of paintings based on this famous book, as seen in the background.

"Alice's hands and hair have blossomed into roses, and her jump rope has become a twisted cord. She encounters the confusion of the surreal looking-glass world with the naiveté and unanswerable logic of the eternal child, finally emerging into reality unharmed, and also unchanged."

This sculpture is called "Homage to Newton", Dali admired Newton so much for his discoveries that "when the King of Spain dedicated a large plaza in Madrid to him in May of 1986, Dali created a large monument of Newton for the plaza."

"The human head (and an analytical and emotional mind) is the principle part of the body that differentiates humans from other animals. In the creation of "Birdman", Dali has removed this 'advantage', and replaced it with a brain both incapable of higher thinking and learning, as well as being unable to create art or appreciate art in any form."

Okay it seems I cannot find the official name for this sculpture, but it was near the Don Quixote painting series, so we will assume that it was something along those lines.

"This woman, almost entirely composed of flames, combines two of Dali's favourite obsessions: fire, and a female figure interspersed with drawers. Dali found flames fascinating because they seem to have a life of their own, exerting an almost hypnotic influence on the observer. The flames also represent the erotic impulses of the female figure. Dali once explained this figure as a Freudian outgrowth of the natural curiosity of children to investigate enclosed spaces, both in order to satisfy the desire to know what these spaces contain, and to exorcise the fear that what is unknown may be harmful. Freud explained that drawers are a representation of the concealed sexuality of women. Dali portrays many of the drawers to be slightly ajar, indicating that their secrets are known and no longer to be feared. Two crutches rise from the figure, symbolising a blend of authority, stability and sexual power." this statue is "Woman Aflame"

 'Galutska en ultra-surréalisme corpusculaire (Ultra-Surrealistic Corpuscular Galutska), series Mémoires de surréalisme (Memories of Surrealism)

'Cirouette culinaire (Culinary Weather Vane), from the series 'Songes drolatiques de Pantagruel', (Pantagruel's Comical Dreams)

One of the pages created for Dali's 'Roméo et Juliette'

From the series 'Tarot', this tarot card is the "Knight of Swords"

"Biblia Sacra 6- Mulier e latere viri"

In 1963 Dali was commissioned by his friend and patron Guiseppe Albaretto to create illustrations for a bible to be printed as a means to guide Dali back to God and the Church. , this took six years to complete, he also used a technique of his own devising called "bulletism" where he fired an arquebus (an old flintlock style rifle) which he loaded with ink capsules and fired at sheets of paper. Whatever random pattern appeared would then be incorporated into the drawing.

And here as a bonus image....Salvador Dali walking his pet anteater... don't ask questions you just saw some examples of how his mind worked.

Next! Just to catch my breath, I have decided the I will do a type of extreme tourism post which covers the cemetery stuff and a few other bits which don't quite need a full entry each

References:

Salvador Dali - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salvador_Dali
The Persistence of Memory - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Persistence_of_Memory
Descriptions of the Sculptures - http://www.dalisculptureeditions.com/Index.asp?Sez=Sculpture
Espace Dalí (official site) - http://www.daliparis.com/

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