Paris, je t'aime.

My photos have uploaded in reverse order here, so forgive that confusion, but I'm finally able to post a few of the photos we've taken of our visit to Paris.

We arrived Saturday and will be here until Thursday afternoon, at which point we fly back to JFK, probably melancholic and sorry to leave this lovely country. But, let me begin where the photos begin, and that is yesterday afternoon.

We spent our 4th of July checking out first the Louvre, then the Luxembourg Gardens. The photo above is of Finn's rental sailboat, nicknamed "Fighter". Sailing this boat around the pond at the gardens was probably Finn's favorite moment of the trip to Paris so far, and, I have to admit, one of mine too. The boat cost 2 euros for a half hour of sailing, and it was worth every centime of that price. He dashed around the pond, dangerously waving his bamboo stick, ecstatic each time his boat returned to the lip of the pond to be shunted off toward the fountain in the middle again. He told all the little French (and American and Italian and Spanish) kids sailing similar boats that his was named "Fighter" ("Il s'appelle Fighter"), and that it was a pirate ship!

The Luxembourg Gardens were overall, I think, my favorite Paris site so far. I loved the Medici Fountain (below), the straight rows of shade trees, the boxed orange trees lining the pebbled courtyard where dozens of locals sat reading novels and eating their lunches in the sunshine. There were ice cream vendors (and families walking through the gardens with pastel colored cones), a carousel full of laughing children, tennis courts where middle-aged Frenchman seemed to be taking their midday work break with a game, and groups of two or three pill-box capped gendarmes strolling here and there. We sat in the midst of this, in the shade of a row of trees I kept imagining must be beautiful in the autumn, and ate our picnic lunch of caprese salad, baguette, watermelon, and chocolate mousse, then toured the gardens. It was quiet, peaceful, and felt perfectly Parisian--the first moment we've had in Paris so far that was free of hordes of tourists and clamoring trinket vendors, and I loved it.

Here we are in front of the Medici Fountain. (I only look irritated because the sun is in my eyes.)

Here's the Luxembourg Palace, once home to French royalty and now the meeting place of its senate.

Earlier in the day we began our morning with a trip to the Louvre. We got a fairly early start, but were still met with long lines to get into the museum and long lines before all of the major works of art inside. Still, it's an impressive place. Honestly, my favorite portion of the Louvre is its exterior--the Tuileries Gardens--but I loved the Italian paintings as well. The most famous of the Louvre's holdings--the Mona Lisa, for instance, and the Venus de Milo--were surrounded by large crowds, nearly everyone in the crowds holding up their cell phones to take photos. I find this trend incredibly irritating. I don't understand the urge to look at the artwork through the lens of your camera instead of standing before it and taking it in fully with your own two eyes. I think there's more to be said about this--about our odd 21st century cultural need to digitally record our lives in order to believe that our experiences have actually happened to us--but I'll save that for another time and place. (Having said this, I'll admit here that Nathan, too, took a few photos inside the museum, and that I'm posting a couple of them below. Do as I say and not as I do?)

The lesser known works were, in my opinion, much more interesting, and I was particularly enamored with the many depictions of the Virgin and Christ child--both in paintings and sculpture. There were a surprising number of images of Mary breastfeeding the baby Jesus, and I noticed again and again (with a bit of a laugh) the look of total boredom on the Holy Mother's face. Parenting--apparently even parenting the Christ child--is pretty much the same the world over.

(Doesn't Mary look like she's thinking, "Didn't I just feed this kid?")

(And here: "I wonder what I should make for dinner tonight?")

(And this one, who is oddly surrounded by the homeliest little cherubim I've ever seen, seems to be not just bored but also a little disdainful of the groping little suckler at her breast... This is all a bit heretical, I realize, but it pleased me to see these images of a less than beatific-looking Holy Mother. This is la bonne mere. This is a woman to whom I can relate.)

Here, a particularly ornate and stunning ceiling.

The exterior of the Louvre.

Virginia, looking through a museum window as a conservator below works on touching up a sculpture.

On Sunday, though I don't have any photos of it, our itinerary included the gorgeous Musee l'Orangerie, where Monet's waterlily paintings hang in large oval rooms, and then the Musee d'Orsay--a museum slightly smaller and much more to my liking than the very touristed Louvre. We then walked the Champs Elysee toward the Arc de Triomphe. We ran into a festival and parade along the Champs Elysee, so the route was extremely crowded, but it was fun to see a bit of local flavor. In a low moment, when we were all exhausted and over warm, we pulled off the main walkway into one of the ritzy malls that line the Champs, hoping to find a cup of coffee and a bathroom. There was a Starbucks, and it was more than strange to find myself standing in the middle of Paris ordering an iced coffee in English, surrounded by other people ordering in English. (It was good, however, to get an iced coffee--something relatively unheard of in France.

That brings me to Sunday, and our first Paris adventure: a trip to the Eiffel Tower. Here are the photos. I'll say only that it was as beautiful and breath-taking in life as it has always been for me in image.