Versailles palace...near Paris

 I visited the Versailles Chateau, about 20 miles from  Paris. It is supposed to be the 'grandest palace in the entire world', It's huge and to get a photo of the entire façade of the building, you have to go really far from the palace! The garden too is huge, filled with fountains surrounded by amazingly beautiful statues . The garden is  supposed to be over 800 hectares...more than 5-10  villages in my hometown in Karnataka! There were a couple of smaller scale palaces too in the garden. You can read the details online.
Here are a few snaps I took.
It takes about an hour plus a few minutes to go by a train from Paris to Versailles palace. You get off at the last stop which is 5 minutes walk from the palace. You buy the tickets at the palace, go through security check and see the palace and gardens. There's a restaurant at the palace. Tripods are 'not' allowed, even if you are going to use it only outdoors such as in the garden.
Once you are done with the palaces, and gardens, you can walk through Versailles and see the shops, antique shops, the market, the Notre Dame church close by, the Stables now converted to courts. Don't think that stables are small! They are huge and now supposed to be a court. People are friendly and helpful. We left Paris at 10.30am to see this palace (by train)and returned to our hotel in Paris by 7pm.

 In the humongous gardens of Versailles, the trees were trimmed and the  shrubs like the one above were beautifully sculpted.  I admired the beauty of this garden
 But I must add here that I also felt a bit guilty about enjoying this beauty! years ago, I read somewhere that plants feel pain like us when cut. For some reason, that fact has stuck in my memory and since then, cutting, trimming, uprooting plants and trees, has always made me feel guilty at least for a few moments!

Louvre's large sculptures from Mesopotamia culture .....

 

I saw these amazing sculptures for the first time at The Louvre. It saddens me that Muslim terrorists, such as the ISIS wilfully destroyed what was left of similar sculptures in the middle-east.

These sculptures carved centuries ago amaze me...the art for one thing, sure. But what amazes me more is the  engineering and science that people had centuries ago, to be able to carve and then move these tons of sculpted stones and position them. I am also amazed at the 'long-lasting quality' of the structures and buildings they built all those centuries ago.

I have had to humbly revise my opinion that science and technology is 'new'...I now accept that all those centuries ago, people had the aesthetics and the know-how to create these temples and palaces.

 

When these rare, irreplaceable pieces are bombed wilfully, not be 'enemies' but by the very citizens of the country i.e.  the ISIS, it's heart-breaking and impossible to understand. Instead of being proud of their heritage, these people bombed them. Are the members of the ISIS, frustrated and jealous that they don't have the skills to construct and so they vent their anger at their own lack of skills by destroying something constructed by their ancestors?

I feel so furious when I see broken statues ...it takes hundreds of hours for a sculptor to carve and 'perfect' a piece...but   these criminals/terrorist/ISIS/idol-worship-hating bigots come along and with a single blow destroy in a minute, something which took days and months to create.

Do they feel any shame or remorse when they break? Do they even think of the sculptor and how he feels to know his work is destroyed? Do they ever put themselves in the shoes of the art-lovers, and ask themselves, "How will I feel if someone like me, came along and destroyed something I loved ?"

 

 

Antique Shiva Parvathi statue in rare 'hugging' position.

USED BOOK, MAGAZINES, LPS AND POSTERS SHOPS BY THE LOUVRE IN PARIS

I visited Paris in November 2017. Saw these green iron-box stores selling used books, etc by the river Seine i.e the other side of the Louvre museum. It reminded me of the used books sold in Majestic area in the 80s...on Kempegowda road near Mysore Bank. The book-sellers displayed their books on the compound wall of 'Gas' College i.e. the Government Arts and Science College for boys. 
The difference is the books in Paris had little dust on them while the ones in Bangalore were covered with a lot dust...mud from the streets and exhaust from the traffic. Another difference is that the booksellers in paris store their books in the green boxes and lock them and leave them there...I think the guys in Bangalore had to lug them home (I am not sure as I was never there late in the evening). I felt a wave of nostalgia as I saw these books and almost bought one  for nostalgia!

This guy above is the seller storing his books before locking up.

The setting sun's rays are on the Louvre museum, the other side of the river Seine while it's dark on the opposite side with the used book shops cast in shade (these shops are literally 'pettige-angadi'. Those who grew up in 70s Bangalore would recall the pettige angadis in developing suburbs of Bangalore ...these stores were literally a huge wooden box on 4 stilts and the shop-keeper would sit inside it and sell things like condiments, cigarettes, & beedies beetle leaves & beetle (areca)nuts, bananas, matchboxes, a few vegetables, coconuts & greens and other things. )

Above is the locked storage holding the books. The owner has gone home I think.
Below is cartoons by a famous artist from India i.e. Mario Miranda about the same scene. I got it from his book(Mario de Miranda, pub in 1999, hardcover). Apparently Mario visited Paris in 1984 i.e. 33 years ago but the scenes still looks the same! I am sure these cartoons would have appeared in the then published magazines in India ...maybe the illustrated weekly of India if it was still on?

Below is Mario's depiction of a famous books shop which I visited (but no photos as it was too dark when I went) i.e. Shakespeare and company