PICTURES - 2001 - PART 2
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In our summer holiday this year we went
to France and Italy.
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First stop was Paris, and nothing is more Paris than the Eiffel Tower. Built in 1889, and it's about 300 meters tall. | ||
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Place de la Concorde, where 1.119 people were executed during the French revolution. To the right is a 3.200 years old obelisk from Luxor in Egypt. | ||
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Lene in front of another famous monument - Arc de Triomphe. | ||
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In the Eiffel Tower elevator, on our way to the top floor, 274 meters up in the air. The top floor has room for 800 people at most. | ||
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An overview of the Trocadéro fountains (unfortunately turned off at this moment), with Palais de Chaillot dominating the scene. | ||
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A view of the Seine. | ||
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Champs-de-Mars, and in the back Ecole Militaire, where the young Napoleon learned his stuff. | ||
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Towards Champs-Elysées, you can see the Arc de Triomphe in the upper left. | ||
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Hôtel des Invalides, with the golden dome. | ||
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Pont Alexandre III (built 1896-1900), named after the Russian Czar. | ||
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Lunch at a café, I don't know why I'm looking so tired, but it must have been all that walking. | ||
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Lene is looking quite happy in front of this Chanel store, but I'll tell you a secret - we didn't go inside... | ||
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La butte Montmartre (the hill) can be seen from the most of Paris. | ||
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The beautiful Sacré-Coeur. | ||
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The back streets of Montmartre. | ||
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Moulin Rouge (which means "Red Windmill"). I guess you've heard the name before... | ||
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At last - time for some relaxing! | ||
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And the place we have all been waiting to visit - Disneyland Paris. This park really had something for children of all ages! Lene is standing on the Central Plaza, with Sleeping Beauty's Castle in the background. | ||
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I've always wanted to be a pirate... | ||
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Big Thunder Mountain - a great roller coaster! | ||
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This was a terrific ride - definitely recommended! | ||
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A good old-fashioned steamboat, in the far back you can see the Phantom Manor, a haunted house. | ||
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The weather wasn't too nice, so we got some raincoats. | ||
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Scenery from the boat trip. | ||
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An X-Wing! Hooray! | ||
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A scene from "Beauty and the Beast". | ||
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Lene hugging Winnie the Pooh. | ||
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Night falls on Main Street, U.S.A. | ||
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The day was topped with the electrical parade. | ||
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A dragon, but you saw that already? | ||
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Every day ends with a magnificent firework! | ||
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Château de Versailles. | ||
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The gardens in Versailles. | ||
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This place was huge! | ||
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The Hall of Mirrors is 73 meters long, 10 meters wide and 12 meters high. A breathtaking sight. | ||
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We stayed at the Republique Hotel, located near (surprise) Place de la Republique. | ||
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Next stop on our tour was Rome. The 2000-year old Colosseum could hold over 50.000 spectators. | ||
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We walked by the Forum Romanum, but we were going to have a closer look at that later. | ||
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Monumento a Vittorio Emanuele, made of marble. | ||
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The quite famous Fontana di Trevi. | ||
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Breakfast at the hotel: cappuccino and some very sweet croissants. | ||
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Ancient Rome's major chariot-racing venue Circo Massimo (or Circus Maximus), the oldest and largest of the ancient arenas. By the days of the Empire it could hold as many as 300.000 people. | ||
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The Spanish Steps on Piazza di Spagna. | ||
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Lene outside the Pantheon, built by Hadrian in 128 AD. The dome was the world's largest of its kind until 1960. | ||
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Piazza Navona, dominated by the gleaming marble composition of Bernini's Fontana dei Quattro Fiumi. The piazza owes its shape to an ancient stadium, built in 86 AD by the Emperor Domitian. | ||
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An overview of Forum Romanum. | ||
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An amazing place to be, when you think what happened in this place so long ago. | ||
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The Triumphal Arch of Septimius Severus. |
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We walked around there for hours! | ||
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The dome of San Pietro seen from the Vatican Museums. As many other things around here, the dome was designed by Michelangelo. | ||
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We rented CD players with guide commentary - a very nice way to see things at our own pace. | ||
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Inside the Vatican Museums. | ||
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Frescoes in the Sistine Chapel. | ||
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The roof, painted by Michelangelo, was nothing less spectacular. | ||
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Cortile della Pigna - or "The Courtyard of Pine-Cone" in English. It takes this curious name from a huge 4 meters high bronze pine-cone dated from the 1st century. | ||
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Inside the Basilica San Pietro. | ||
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My own photo of the Baldacchino of the High Altar (Bernini, 1633)... |
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...and a postcard of the same thing. You decide which one is better! :-) | ||
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The Chair of Saint Peter (Bernini, 1657). |
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Lene in front of one of the many altars in this fantastic cathedral. | ||
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Up towards the dome. | ||
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View towards Villa Borghese in the far left. | ||
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Piazza di San Pietro with the center of Rome in the background. | ||
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Nice view in all directions up here... | ||
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It was not just your ordinary roof, either. They even had room for a little souvenir shop up there! | ||
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We went as far up as we could, but it was still some way to go until the very top. | ||
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The Swiss Guards, with uniforms designed by Michelangelo. | ||
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Ponte Sant' Angelo (the bridge) and Castel Sant' Angelo, originally built as a mausoleum for Emperor Hadrian in 139 AD.. | ||
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Santa Maria Maggiore. | ||
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It didn't look too special from the outside, but the inside was fantastic. | ||
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Gold and paintings everywhere. | ||
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Lene on our hotel room with roses she got from a waiter when we went out to eat one night. | ||
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Basilica di San Marco in Venice. | ||
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Lene on the Piazza San Marco. | ||
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Ponte di Rialto, the most famous bridge in Venice. | ||
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Having ice cream by the bridge. | ||
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Campo San Stefano. | ||
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This city was even more packed with canals than I'd imagined... | ||
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View down the Canal Grande towards the church Santa Maria della Salute from the bridge Ponte Academia. | ||
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In a street nearby our hotel. | ||
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Everything you've heard about how special this city is, is true. Very unusual to have so much water everywhere! | ||
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The Duomo in Milan, Italy's largest gothic building, and the 3rd largest cathedral in Europe. | ||
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Of course we had to get on top and check out the view! | ||
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And the view was great. | ||
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The exclusive shopping mall Galleria Vittorio Emanuele. | ||
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Lene feeding the pigeons. | ||
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After a long walk we found the home ground of AC Milan and Inter Milan, the San Siro (or Giuseppe Meazza as it's also known). It holds about 85.000 people, too bad the stadium was closed so we couldn't have a look inside. | ||
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Right next to the football stadium we found the San Siro Hippodrome, with a nice horse sculpture outside. | ||
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As the Castello Sforzesco was hard to photograph from the air, we had to make do with a postcard.... | ||
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It was nice to cool down in the fountains outside, because the weather was really, really hot! | ||
