Day 17-Greece

Day 17-Greece

            During this Economic depression, Greece was one of the most suffering countries in the world. Because of so, I felt the depression of the country at the first day I arrived in Athens.

            As the capital of Greece, Athens should be a flourish city. However, what I saw was the closing stores and the early close public system.

            Different from its economy, Athens’s cultural or historical relics were amazing. Akropoli was a “center of culture and religion” built on a high rocky outcrop above the city of Athens. All of the temples in Akropoli were made of enormous limestone and marbles. It was not hard to imagine how hard it was to build all these architectures on the hill.

            All these works showed the strength of Greece around 500BC. Through the long river of history, many great empires had used the art in Greece. For example Rome copied the technics of stone carving from Greece.

Day 15- Netherland Amsterdam

Day 15- Netherland Amsterdam

            Amsterdam in Netherland was a very interesting city. Compare to other Northern Europe countries, Amsterdam was not that neat. This gave me the feeling of living in a southern Europe city.

            Vincent Willem van Gogh was born in Netherland and he was one of my favorite artists in the world. I decided to visit Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam. Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam was full of Van Gogh’s best works and his friends’ works.

            Through my visit, I felt Van Gogh’s life. His paintings in different period of times were so different, showed his changes. The works he painted in southern France showed that he was really excited because of the beautiful countryside. And also, the paintings he created in later of his life were not so bright. He used heavy and dark oil paints showed his pain in life.

Day 14- Kolon, Germany

Day 14- Kolon, Germany

            “How could the Taxis possibly be this in order! ”

            This was my first impression when I look out through the window of the Kolon train station. Although I had imagined the neat of a German city, I had never though it would be like this. However, this was not the only thing shocked me.

            Walking out the station, The Cathedral of Cologne appeared in my eyesight. It was too tall that I had to lift up my head to have a full view of it. The Cathedral of Cologne was different from other Catholic churches. Its Gothic design gave it a mysterious and unreachable them.

            

Day 12 In Paris

Day 12 In Paris

            “Paris was not as fascinating as I had imagined it to be since I was little. “

            This was my first impression when I just at Paris. Though it was true that compare to Italy or Greece, France was a much better developed and modern country. The highly modernized subway system was truly amazing, but I believed that as the capital of a strong country, Paris should be like this.

            Then I started to ask myself that what really stood out for Paris made it one of the most famous and romantic places in the world. The answer was did not come out to me until I visited the Louvre Museum.

            I had been to many museums in my eighteen years of life time, but none of them were as exciting as Louvre. What really attracted me was not the new main entrance, designed by Ieoh Ming Pei. For some people, they did not understand the reason of its triangle shape. In contrast, I loved it! It formed a great contract with the old part of buildings. The glass triangle shape entrance was a sign of modernization and the old palace buildings were the signs of history.

            This contrast also told the world that Louvre Museum did not only own the beautiful arts from the history, but also focused on how the path of art would go on.