Les Invalides

Today I am proud to take you to one of my special places in Paris - l'Hôtel National des Invalides. Those of you who have been reading my blog already for a while know that my family has a long tradition of military service and that I always enjoy visiting military museums and exhibitions.

Les Invalides were built in 17th century upon an order of Louis XIV. Until the early twentieth century it used to be a home and hospital for aged and injured soldiers. In 1905 it was turned into a museum devoted to the French Army. Its courtyard was the witness of many major events in the French history.

The building undergoes now some refurbishement. It is interesting to see the results on the left and the original state on the right.

The man above the porch is, of course, Napoleon. He is burried in the building just behind. Did you notice the nice decorations around the windows? I like them a lot.

In the courtyard you can see lots of cannons. They seem a bit smaller than the ones I saw in Fort Henry last year.

Here I am, here I am!

Further, you can see a small tank.

Finally, here comes the church in which Napoleon waits for eternity. I could not enter inside this time so definitely we need to make up for it on some other day.

Let's stroll now in the direction of the Latin District. First, we will pass next to the lower chamber of the French Parliament, located in Palais Bourbon.

Then we come to the Musee d'Orsay, housed in the former Gare d'Orsay. It exhibits mainly French art dating from 1848 to 1915, housing the largest collection of impressionist and post-impressionist masterpieces in the world.

To see it in full we need to jump just for a moment back to the Tuileries.

This was quite a long walk. Let's then take some rest in a nice French-style cafe.

A good cup of tea. This was exactly what I needed ...