London, England
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St. Martin-in-the-Fields
St Martin-in-the-Fields is the 'royal parish church' at Trafalgar Square the masterpiece of James Gibbs and was consecrated in 1726. St Martin's has a tradition of tending to the poor and homeless that goes back to WWI, it also holds lunch time concerts a few days a week and evening concerts by candlelight. There is a café downstairs in the Crypt, so we ate lunch there and it was good. Then we went into the The London Brass Rubbing Centre which is also down in the Crypt and did a rubbing while gramma went upstairs to listen to the rehearsal for the concert (I think they were rehearsing Vivaldi - Four Seasons By Candlelight).
That's the fountain at Trafalgar Square.
After completing our brass rubbings we decided to head over to Westminster Abbey, however when we got there we found out that they were closed for a few hours around lunch and we had a little time to waste. So, Grampa and Mackenzie hung out around the Abbey and Gramma and I hoofed over to Covent Garden to pick up our tickets for the Lion King Musical that we were seeing that night.
Westminster Abbey is one of the most visited churches in Christendom (and the tallest Gothic building in the British Isles) and except for Edward V and VIII every sovereign has been crowned here since WIlliam the Conqueror in 1066. All the monarchs from 1272 to 1760 were buried there as well, but are now laid to rest in St George's Chapel in Windsor. Since the funeral of Princess Diana in 1997 attendance has increased by an estimated 300%, so they've cordoned off some areas to protect the floors.
We left Wednesday and took a taxi to the train station since it was raining and took the Chunnel (Eurostar) train from London to Paris.
The Eurostar started running in November of 1994 and can travel up to 186 mph, though when they announced that we were traveling at that speed it was so smooth and quiet that you couldn't tell. The tunnel that runs under the English Channel is 31 miles long and it takes only 20 minutes to go through, though the whole trip between London and Paris is only 3 hours and that will drop to 2 1/2 hours when they finish another section of high speed track. Mackenzie loved it and wanted to take it back to London.
Paris, France
We got into Paris in the late afternoon so we checked into our 'cozy' hotel (the view from our window), unpacked then headed out around the neighborhood checking out the area and looked for a place to eat dinner.
The next morning we started out at a bazaar and wandered around there looking at all the stuff, we bought some delicious fruit and a few scarves.
Then we headed to the Panthéon.
The Panthéon is a civic temple and was built between 1755-1790. It was originally built as an abbey church but was converted into a secular mausoleum for the "great men of the era of French liberty" and all Christian symbols and references were removed.
When you first walk in there is a Foucault's pendulum in the center under the dome. On March 26, 1851, Léon Foucault showed the pendulum at the first public demonstration at the Panthéon to provide proof that the earth does spin on its axis (and thus the Panthéon spins around the pendulum). Though since 1855 the Conservatoire des Arts et Métiers (where Foucault first showed scientists the pendulum) has been it's official home it has been temporarily housed at the Panthéon during reconstruction of the Conservatoire.
That's Gramma and Mackenzie in the middle of the stairs (in the pink).
The walls have paintings on them that are dedicated to the story of Saint Geneviève and the epic story of the Christian and monarchic origns of France.
In the Crypt are Voltaire, Mirabeau, Victor Hugo, Émile Zola, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Louis Braille, Jean Moulin, Marie Curie (the first woman to be interred) and her husband Pierre.
Since it was raining we decided to hit a museum and headed for the d'Orsay which is a former railway station which was built in 1900 and re-opened as the museum in 1986. The Orsay is best known for it's impressionist collection, so we headed there to see some Monet, Manet, Van Gogh, Renoir, Pissaro, Degas, Cézanne and some post impressionists, Seurat and Matisse.
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