Dust
9:12 AM
Thursday, the 19th. Leaving Paris, we packed up, stowed our luggage in one room downstairs, and went out for a couple more tour highlights, before our afternoon train.
So, a new challenge Thursday morning, when we ventured out to the closest station, and Liz gave us a little coaching in front of the map, and each a Metro ticket to make our own way back to the hotel...
Together, we briefly visited Les Invalides, a veterans' hospital/home set up by Napolean (with, reportedly, still a few old soldiers living there), but now the site of both the national military museum and Napoleon's Tomb. Pressed for time, we skipped most of the museum (wish I'd have had time to visit at least the medieval part--research for D&D), whipped past the WWI tank, through the rather ostentatious chapel, and to the tomb.
Curious, that here in France, Napolean is revered, a notion that I've never much received from our Anglophile history texts at home.
The Tomb is behind the chapel's glass wall (or perhaps in front of...). It rests in a rotunda, vault roof overhead, a circular balcony at the entrance level, where the tombs of various generals, kings, and descendents attend to the great leader, for eternity. And rumored, various hearts here somewhere--the heart of Louis XVII?
The Tomb itself, Sherrie observed, is shaped much like the Ark of the Covenant, which we would know from an Indiana Jones movie. (Ok, we are American, and see everything through Hollywood blockbusters.) Sherrie also noted that the tomb needs to be dusted.
bob
Metro Adventures
Liz, our tour guide, had been getting us used to riding the Metro. Not completely easy, getting 29 of us smoothly aboard the quick subway. Coming back from dinner Wednesday night, the group got a bit split up after Ann somehow got stuck in the ticket turnstile (I don't quite know how), and one group--David, Willy, Kimberly, Charity--far ahead, turned down the wrong tunnel. Right line, but the tunnel going the wrong direction. We eventually met up...So, a new challenge Thursday morning, when we ventured out to the closest station, and Liz gave us a little coaching in front of the map, and each a Metro ticket to make our own way back to the hotel...
Together, we briefly visited Les Invalides, a veterans' hospital/home set up by Napolean (with, reportedly, still a few old soldiers living there), but now the site of both the national military museum and Napoleon's Tomb. Pressed for time, we skipped most of the museum (wish I'd have had time to visit at least the medieval part--research for D&D), whipped past the WWI tank, through the rather ostentatious chapel, and to the tomb.
Curious, that here in France, Napolean is revered, a notion that I've never much received from our Anglophile history texts at home.
The Tomb is behind the chapel's glass wall (or perhaps in front of...). It rests in a rotunda, vault roof overhead, a circular balcony at the entrance level, where the tombs of various generals, kings, and descendents attend to the great leader, for eternity. And rumored, various hearts here somewhere--the heart of Louis XVII?
The Tomb itself, Sherrie observed, is shaped much like the Ark of the Covenant, which we would know from an Indiana Jones movie. (Ok, we are American, and see everything through Hollywood blockbusters.) Sherrie also noted that the tomb needs to be dusted.
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