Claude Monet's Garden

Today we went to Claude Monet's garden, located in Giverny, France.
If you don't already know this, Monet (1840-1926) was a famous painter who liked to capture different light in his paintings. He was also known as an Impressionist. Some of his most famous art pieces were done in his (Monet's) garden.
This garden has a river running through to a pond, beautiful flowers everywhere and a few spectacular small bridges.
This garden is called Monet's garden because it was a made by Monet himself. He planted the lily pads that delicately float on the water. He planted the flowers and weeded them too. He made everything so perfect.


It wasn't just a place to glance at flowers though, it was Monet's inspiration for many of his paintings. In fact, Monet's most famous painting (1897) is called "water lillies" or in French, "nympheas, effet du soir." Guess what? It was done here in the garden.
I personally thought that Monet's garden was really cool because it inspired me to do more paintings and take more photos.
Also Monet's garden is just an hour outside of Paris by train. Another cool thing is that Monet's house was up on the hill just above it with a flower garden in front.
If you ever get the chance to go to France, then definitely go to Monet's garden because it is absolutely, stunningly beautiful!






Marin-

Location:Giverny, France

Paris

Things I learned in Paris

* the Eiffel tower is exactly 1000 feet tall

* there are only three REAL gold things in Paris: The top of the egyptian obelisk in Concorde Place, the statues on the bridge representing peace with the Russians, and the Eglise du Dome.

* Napoleon Bonaparte lived and ruled in Paris but was banished to an island near Africa after he escaped the first one and recaptured Paris...

* One King of France named Louis XIV (also known as the Sun King) invented high heels to show off his legs .

*Napoleon Bonaparte was buried for the second time in a church behind Les Invalides near the military school in Paris. He is buried beneath the surface of the church with glass over his bones. You basically have to bow down to him to look at him. Here's the funny thing, a young man named Adolph Hitler (I'm sure you have heard of this terrible guy...)was a fan of Napoleons so one day he decided to go to the church to see Napoleons bones, Hitler liked Napoleon but thought he was even more powerful, so what he did was set up a series of mirrors so that he could see Napoleon but not have to bow down to him............wow.

*another fact about Napoleon is that he always wanted to be the highest/ best in everything. He went to the military school, was in the military, was a commander, was the ruler, then he fired all the other senators and people who helped to make laws and decisions, he made himself ruler for life, but that wasn't high enough for him. When the pope was about to crown him to be the emporer, he stole the crown from the pope and crowned himself to show that he was more important than the pope himself.

*don't drive in Paris! use the metro, your feet, and the RER trains!!!!

* if you stand I front of the Louvre and look over the gardens, you can see a fountain in line with the obelisk, in line with the Arc de Triomphe, in line with the le Defense arch.

Arc de Triomphe


* Paris is beautiful in the night time...

* the Louvre museum is really, really awesome but don't use the glass dome entrance, use the metro to get there and go under ground to save you from the hour long wait.

* the Eiffel Tower was built in 1889 by a man named Gustave Eiffel



* the French had an extremely simple naming system, for example; Gustave Eiffel built the Eiffel tower. Ècole militare was the military school. Art de Triomphe was the triumphant arch. Very simple.

* Paris has its own reproduction of the statue of liberty. The interesting thing is that the statue of liberty was actually a gift from France to the US...

*the H&M in Venice, Italy is bigger than the one in Paris... Weird? :)

*the Eiffel tower is 3 times as tall as the space needle, a little smaller than the empire state building, and about 5 times as tall as the statue of liberty.

*the Eiffel tower lights up every hour for ten minutes until 2in the morning.

*the whole left wing of the Louvre museum was where Napoleon lived.


The Louvre

Location:Paris, France

Michelangelo's David

Today we went to The Accademia in Florence!

This museum is famous for the statue of David that as built in the year 1502, during the Renaissance in Florence, by Michelangelo . This story of David is popular and famous. David killed a giant named Goliath with a sling and a stone when he was only a teenager. Now you might think its weird that somebody can be so famous by just killing someone, but Goliath was not just a person on the street. This story is a biblical one so everyone in David's town was a believer in one god and believed in Christianity. Goliath belonged to a group of giants who didn't have the same religion as the people who were in the town with David. What Goliath's group did was stand outside the walls of the city and call people from the town to go out and fight them. Nobody in the city wanted to go fight the giants but David volunteered. David went out to the giants and took his stone and sling and he slung his rock, it hit Goliath, and killed him. In many paintings from the Florence Renaissance time period (1400-1550) there is David holding the head of Galaeith in his hand or in a bowl. The statue of David, though, is not of him holding the head of the awful giant, but of him before the fight. He is naked, looking courageous yet cautious. He is naked, to show every little bit about him, from showing how tense he is to also showing his strength. This statue stands 14 feet tall and is white, made out of a one slab of beautiful, breathtaking marble. The statue practically glows under the huge glass dome that stands over it.
Now the statue of David has some interesting parts to it as well. For example, his hands are very large, hairy, and muscular. His hands are like this because Michael Angelo wanted to show that David had strength from god. That he was strong and could beat Goliath. Also his hands are large because ethe statue was meant to Be put on top of the Duomo, this way the people below could see his strong hands from that angle. Another interesting thing about the statue was David's head. It is a little too large for his body also for the same reasons.

Today David is the most popular tourist attraction in the Accademia . People from all over the world come to see it everyday. If you get a chance to go and experience italy, you most definitely need to go to the Accademia and see Michelangelo's David.


This is a replica of David where the original used to stand in the Palazzo della Signoria before it was moved to the Accademia. It was moved to keep it safe from weather and one unfortunate incident of a desk flying out of a window and breaking off his arm....

-Marin-

Location:Florence, Italy

Mt. Vesuvius and the lost city of Pompeii

On top of Mt. Vesuvius, overlooking Pompeii




Steam vents inside Mt. Vesuvius's crater



In Pompeii Scavi, Mt. Vesuvius in the background


We recently visited the Italian city of Pompeii.
It was really cool because we were able to see old ruins that were perfectly preserved by lava and ash from Mt. Vesuvius.
Mt. Vesuvius exploded in 79 a.d. and is considered one of the most devastating events in ancient times.
The day this volcano exploded was just like any normal day for the men, women, and children of Pompeii. They went along there normal buismess, doing laundry, building, walking, or learning when a large earthquake hit Pompeii. They kept carrying on like nothing had happened. Little did they know that soon, many of them would die.
Within a couple of hours a large booming sound exploded from the volcano as a cloud of smoke rushed up from it.
Some people in Pompeii fled the city (by boat) because they were scared and nervous, but some thought that this event was cool and entertaining so they stayed in the town and watched this happen.
The people who hadn't fled the city were either back to their jobs or watching the volcano, when it began raining rocks. Not just little pebbles, but large softball-sized stones. These stones weren't blown out of the volcano, they were formed by hot ash that was hovering above the city. The ash had began to cool in the sky and turned into clumps that pounded down onto Pompeii.
But this wasn't the worst of their troubles.
The rocks killed and injured people, also it got so heavy on the roofs of houses and shops that it broke roofs down and crushed the victims hiding beneath them.
By now everyone left in Pompeii was under shelter or in their houses when a toxic gas from the inside of the volcano began to drift though the town and leak in and, unfortunately, kill the remaining people.
As you think that is the worst this problem could get, it's not.
With any volcano, there has to be lava.
As the lava speeded down the side of the mountain at over 110 km per hour, everyone in Pompeii had no chance.
Several years later, some farmers re-found the city of Pompeii one day as they were digging a well.
They uncovered so much of the city and found people's preserved remains from everywhere there.
In 1944 the volcano struck again, thankfully people in Pompeii had a better warning and idea of what was going on.
Today the wonderful city of Pompeii thrives. Hundreds, maybe thousands of people visit the ruins of Pompeii every day and the area surrounding Mt Vesuvius has a population of almost 3 million. Mt. Vesuvius is an attraction of its own as millions of people climb up to the volcano's summit every year to have a view over the beautiful cities of Pompeii, Herculeum, and Naples.

Marin




Apollo in Pompeii

Location:Pompeii, Italy

The Colosseum

Today we went to the Colosseum! It was really cool because we had a tour guide and were able to learn what really happened there!
The Colosseum was originally built by Vespasian and wasn't called the Colosseum, it was called Flavian Amphitheater. The name has changed over time. People began calling it the colossal, as in large and it some how ended up as Colosseum in the end. Another interesting fact about the the Coliseum is that it was originally given as a gift from Vespasian to the city of Rome as a gift and was meant for plays and performances, not for slaughters, battles, and hunting.
As I said earlier they didn't continue to use this arena for plays, as it was meant, instead it was used for hunting in the morning, mid-day human executions, and evening battles.
Now when you think of this arena, you probably think it's a bunch of bleachers with a stage or field in the middle, sorry your wrong, it is way more complicated than that! The seating itself could probably hold around 50,000 people, including the slaves and women; who sat on the top of the stadium, the men; who sat in the middle, the senators and important people; who sat in the "V.I.P" section, and the Emperor; who sat in his very own fancy, box seat.
The Colosseum also has a stage with 80 trap doors leading to underground compartments.





Now when you think of what they did in the arena, you should probably think about something along the lines of the "Hunger Games," except for this wasn't for food and it was real. The daily schedule for the events in the arena went like this;
MORNING- The Romans would hunt in the stadium. They used real animals, not trained or fake or anything. Real! And they would recreate where you could find the animal and what it would really be like to hunt it. For example, they would put a Siberian tiger in the arena. Next they would make it like a zoo habitat for the tiger. Then, well, they would put you in there with a spear or sword or knife and see who won. You can kind of guess how that went...

AFTERNOON- they would have the human executions. You would be sentenced to slaughter for stealing, murder, disobeying the emperor, etc.
Now, this wasn't your normal beheading or hanging you would usually hear about. The Romans decided to get creative. They would recreate the deaths of gods. For example, Orpheus. Orpheus was a god who played beautiful, beautiful music that could put almost anyone into a trance. This is sad for the man who was about to be slaughtered in the arena, here's what happened to him: One day Orpheus is walking along and is by a tree in the meadow, (the man in the arena is tied to a tree in the middle), when a lion comes out of the woods, but the lion falls asleep from Orpheus's beautiful music, (lion falls asleep), next a wild boar comes out, (boar comes out from the side of the stage), but the music makes him run by orpeus without a scratch, (the boar runs by the man), suddenly a bear comes out of the woods, (bear comes out from the stage), sadly for Orpheus ,and the man in the arena, bears are tone deaf. Therefore the bear kills Orpheus, (and mauls the poor man tied to the tree in the arena).

EVENING- in the evening there would be Gladiator battles. There were men (sometimes women) gladiators that fought in the arena to the death.......sometimes. It was an interesting thing though because, for example, let's say that one gladiator has the sword (ormwhatever weapon was popular at the time) to the other gladiator's throat, he won't kill him, he will look up at the Emperor and the emperor will give a thumbs up or a thumbs down, decide if he should kill him or not.
This was the daily life of the Colosseum, hope you enjoyed! :)



Marin

Location:Largo dei Librari,Rome,Italy