Musée du Moyen Age--Le Panthéon

Today we got our Four Day Museum Pass, so we are trying for a couple over in the Latin Quarter. We head out on the metro, only to find that the stop where we are supposed to transfer is closed. So we get off and have to walk up a couple of blocks tot he next station. Conveniently, those two blocks contain a really cool street market. We get our daily bread, as we forgot to stop at Paul this AM....We also got ice cube trays for the apt that have been sorely lacking at apertif time....

Here is some paella cooking in a giant vat. It did, in fact, smell that good!!

We made it down to the Latin Quarter, and headed for the Musée du Moyen Age. Outside you can see these ruins of a Roman Bath they are excavating. This it the "tepidarium" part.
This museum is housed in a former residence and place where visiting clergy could stay. There are TONS of religious artifacts here, and all the signage is in French, so Miles and Caroline start making up the stories to go with them. We saw this room of stained glass, and the story that goes with this one is that these guys had to get their camel and their white kid out of town because they were scared of the giant red artichoke coming over the hill!! (I would like to point out here that the kids have been really great about the museums, and looking at all the stuff, and talking about it, and gaining an understanding about why it is important)
Here are some heads that were taken off Notre Dame. Well, at least they found them!

Here is some 12th century pottery. I could not get over the colors and how beautiful they were. I was also amazed at how intact they were! That is some fine craftsmanship....
Here is the oldest "sculpture" in Paris. It is called the Pilier des nautes, and is a picture of Jupiter. It is from the 2nd century!! They found it under the courtyard in front of Notre Dame. They keep it here in the Frigidarium sction of the Roman Baths. We crack up every time we say" Frigidarium."
Here is the outside of this museum as seen from the cute little park across the street (dedicated to a mathematician!) where we had our lunch. It is a really cool building!
Here is The Sorbonne! Well a door of it, this was the best picture.
Then we walked around a bit to the Jardin and Palais du Luxembourg. Again, wow.
There was a superfun playground there, so some people were able to get some of their yah-yahs out.
Then we walked up the street to Le Panthéon. Just another incredible building....when we thought we had seen the most impressive already...
Here's the inside, where in 1851, Foucault suspended a pendulum from the dome. The mass of the pendulum was 28 kg and the length of the arm was 67 m. Once the pendulum was set in motion, the plane of motion was observed moving 360° clockwise once per day. This movement was most easily explained by the rotation of the Earth!! So cool! OK, I swiped those facts from Wiki, but I honestly did not retain the info from the seven minute video in French that I watched.
And here is a pic of Alexaner Dumas' tomb down in the crypt, that we took for our favorite Dumas-loving Aunt. There are many interesting people buried in there. Voltaire, Molière, Louis Braille, and the Curies to name some of them....
Here is the ceiling. Our new France motto, is, "Don't forget to look up!!"
We came home and got caught in a torrential downpour when it was time to switch metros (we had to do the walk to a different stop thing) Il pleut des cordes!!!

Monoprix has the nerve to be closed on Sundays, so we went out looking for food, and most restaurants ( the ones we want to go to) are closed, too! We end up at sushi, which was really good, and they were really sweet to us. Here is how it is when we say we are from Seattle: "Oh! Microsoft! Starbucks!" We smile and nod because we do not know if this is considered good. Today a guy said "Supersonics!" Go figure.

On the walk home, we took a picture of this Dyson vacuum store for our friend Kristina who loves vacuums. Especially these. Sweet dreams, Steener.

Bateaux Mouches--Sacré-Coeur!!

Today, Saturday, was a bit overcast, and we thought it would be a good day for a boat ride, maybe not so crowded. It is actually pretty warm out, the clouds are high and do not look like rain. So we sauntered down Boulevard George 5, to the Rive, and hopped aboard the Bateau-Mouche. It was about an hour and a half, and we got to see all the main sights from the water. It was actually a really nice way to see things, because you just get to sit and look. You do have to pay a bit of attention, because the narration is in 6 different languages, so you have to notice when they switch to English......Here is Miles on the boat.



Here we are going under the Pont d'Invalides. It is really fancy, this is hardly the half of it!!Another view of Notre Dame. It is just phenomenal---any direction you look at it....

Oh! The Eiffel Tower AND the Statue of Liberty! Eiffel apparently helped design the interior structure of the Lady of Liberty.OK, that was a short highlight reel of our boat ride. There were many beautiful buildings and bridges, and the weather was actually nicer than it looks in the photos. From the boat dock, we walked back up to the Champs, went to Paul for our daily baguette, then hopped on Metro, headed for Montmartre. We figured out that the whole Metro "pass" thing is not worth our while, and are just buying booklets of 10 tickets at a time, now. Here are Miles and Caroline looking like metro-pros.

We got off the metro, and hiked up a touristy street to the lawn here in front of Sacre-Couer. There we ate our lunch on the VERY steep grass. I think this is the highest hill in Paris, and the view is fantastic. A little hazy today, but we do not complain. We walked around inside the church, which had unbelievably beautiful mosaic work, but they do not let you take photos.

Then we headed out the back for a little walking tour of the Montmartre Area. A very charming area once popular with artists and poets, although apparently real estate prices are keeping those types out nowadays. Here's a nice view: Our little walk took us through a park where we found this statue. This is St Denis, who was beheaded and then walked to this spot carrying his head. ooooo, creepy!

Then we saw this cat sleeping on a motorcycle, OMG, so cute.
Then we saw this house that Van Gough lived in....that is pretty neat-o.

Then we took the obligatory picture of Moulin Rouge. At one time, there were many mills in this area, over 30, and they ground gypsum from underground quarries. They had to stop, though, so the hill wouldn't collapse. We had planned to hit the Montmartre Cemetery, but were a little pasted so we are saving it for another time. We did peek over the fence at it, and it looked really cool. After this, we metro-ed home, made dinner and went to bed! Phew!

Friday--Notre Dame

This AM we decided to walk down to Notre Dame. It is a pretty good hike, but we get to go through the Louvre Grounds, and along the Seine. Here is part of the Garden at the Louvre. ooo that is pretty...
Here is this guy with a bird on his head...somewhat of a lack of dignity...

Front of Louvre. I know that some people were not totally thrilled about the pyramids. I kind of like them, they are weird.Along the Seine....

The gates in front of Sainte Chapelle, or maybe this is next door. I need to look this up, this is the problem with being a day behind...
We got to Notre Dame and had a snack outside, where billions and billions of pigeons are just waiting for you to drop some crumbs, ugh. We arrived at the perfect time, because the cathedral had been closed all morning for a big funeral of a cardinal, I think. Nicolas Sarcozy was there, but we missed him. In fact, it was big news that he had flown across the Atlantic twice in one day, because he is vacationing in the US, and then had a lunch date with George Bush on Saturday, so he had to get back... Here is one of the THREE doors into Notre Dame. You could spend a lifetime studying this building and all the meanings of all the artwork on and in it....

Oh and the stained glass is really incredible, too.
Holy flying Buttresses!!!!
Here we are enjoying our afternoon snack. Miles is beside himself because he has 2!! ice cream cones, as Caroline gave hers up as being "too chocolatey". (don't ask me). I am drinking beer, because in Paris you can go up to an outdoor food stand and get a can of beer and drink it in the park because THEY DON'T CARE. They trust that as an adult, you can handle it. Wow, no nanny state here. Caroline is on the water, and I just thought this picture was funny.
THEN we went under the square in front of Notre Dame, to the Crypt Archaeologie, where the ruins of the Original Paris are. Roman Baths, original "ramparts", way cool. I have always loved this type of stuff. There was all kinds of info, too, about the tile work,and where they got the colors for the glazes and it was really interesting.....There was even a portal that Nicholas Flamel (!! Harry Potter Fame!!) had had built. We had much hilarity over that sign....

Then we went outside and into my nightmare, where some guy gave my kids some bread so they could FEED the BIRDS in the courtyard. Good Grief!

Here is a pretty garden out back of the cathedral, where we heard a groovy little band playing.
Here is Mile 0, the point from which all roads in France are measured.
We were walking up to the Metro, and we ran into the same adorable Danish people we met last night at the Eiffel Tower! They were so sweet, and the one of them knew a LOT about Paris and gave Nick some tips. They are going to Versailles tomorrow, and we are not, so we will not see them there...that would be really funny. We stood on the side of the street and talked to them for about half an hour, and they politely listened to Miles and Caroline going on and on.... We then, came home on Metro, shopped Monoprix, cooked dinner and went to bed.

Thursday--Le Tour Eiffel!!

Today, the day was looking cloudy and grey. The washing machine in the apt, seems to not be working properly. We need to do some shopping. The day starts out as a "taking care of things" day. Nick is trying to fix the washer, but the instructions are in French. Aunt Cynthia needs the washer to be working so that she can rent the place. She is of the opinion that we should just go to the appliance store where she bought it and ask them for some help. Like everything else in Paris, it is right up the road, so after breakfast we head up there on foot. We see this on the way there:
Oh, did you park wrong? Well, we aren't just going to tow your car, we crane it onto a flatbed truck and take it away. The cars are parked so close all the time here, there is no way that you could get a tow truck in. I just noticed a Monoprix in the background there, sweet.

We got to the appliance store, but of course they no longer sell that model (called Alise!) anymore. We look around and marvel at all the 30 different models of electric tea kettles you can buy there. Also they do not even have anything like an owner's manual in English that we might be able to troubleshoot with. Oh well, a technician is coming out next week to help us with it.
We leave the appliance store and it turns out to be market day in the Arrondissment. We are freaking out about how much better the produce is here than Monoprix and buy a ton of it. Here is some of it:
Freaking out, I tell you. We got some bread at Paul, our little boulangerie chain, and while we were there, a bunch of pigeons in the doorway, became very brazen, and one flew into the window and started eating a lovely looking raisin bread. The counter gal was freaked out and had to call the baker out of the back to get it out. The baker came out, putting on rubber gloves, and grabbed it and chucked it out the door!! Miles and Caroline were in hysterics. It was really funny. Here: me and Aunt Cynthia walking home from the market. We passed a piano store, but they were closed for August, so Caroline could not go in and practice.
We get home and Nick works on the washer some more (still not working), I make some lunch with all our new produce, --sandwiches, sauteed cauliflower, and nectarines (not sauteed). It was way better than I just made it sound. After lunch, we decide to head to the Eiffel Tower. It is getting close to late afternoon, and kind of cloudy, so we figure even if the crowds are bad, it will not be broiling hot, like the other day. We were right!! And the crowds were not bad!! We met some extremely cute Danish people in line, who we chatted with on every floor. Here are our photos:
Looking up!

Looking down!--that is a big city!
It was super windy at the top. We got the adorable Danish people to take our photo:
Here is what it looks like if you stick your arm out of the tower and take a picture straight down!
Here is the inside, taken from the first level, yes, that is the line, and that is not even the half of it!! That is for the people who take the elevator, though, we were tuffies, and took the stairs as far as we could go. Miles read all the informative signs we could find, and was surprised to learn that Eiffel had an office up there!!
We walked back to the apartment, had a nice dinner in a little bistro, and headed for home.
Wahoo!!! And then after we got home, Nick fixed the washer!! The outflow tube was clogged! All is well.

Hotel des Invalides

It was cloudy again when we awoke, and started pouring while we were eating breakfast. We figured that meant a good day for a museum!! here is our wet walk down Champs-Elyssees. It actually stopped raining after this and we never needed our umbrellas all day.

We walked down to the Hotel des Invalides, where there are several military-ish museums. Originally a type of veteran's hospital/residence, it is a beautiful and huge building which now houses, among many things, Napoleon's tomb. Here is the building, they just re-gold leafed the dome in 1989 with 28 lbs of gold leaf!
As I said, this is a military type of place, so there are thousands of cannon laying around all over the place. Inside, they were all labeled with the date and type that they were. To me, they were all cannons....but they have gone this lovely shade of green, so here they are:
I always think it is funny when there are shrubs cut into funny shapes. They had some of those, too. And lots of 'em!!
Then we went inside:
...and headed straight for Napoleon's tomb. It is hard to see in the picture, and I know his reputation is for being a little guy, but this coffin is Really Big, about the size/dimension of my kitchen! Could be because he is actually in SIX coffins. Two are lead and one is lined in lavender Corsican marble. That thing is not going anywhere!!! It is rather impressive and all the statuary and carvings and paintings all around are --I'm quoting the guidebook here because I am running out of adjectives--"sumptuous!"
Caroline and Miles were impressed with his frock-coat and hat. It looked like it might have fit Miles perfectly. I hope he wasn't counting on that coat keeping him warm in winter, it was pretty thin fabric...
Then we went to the Musee des Plans Reliefs, which had scale models of all the towns, harbors and forts along the coasts. We took this picture of the Chateau d'If for Aunt Cynthia because she is seriously the World's Biggest Alexander Dumas fan.
We traipsed through the WWI and WWII museum, and checked out all the uniforms, there are hundreds!! The French definitely looked the best out there on the battle field. The kids were getting a little fried, so we hung out and waited for Nick who could have spent all day in there. For our walk home, we took a bit of a roundabout way, through the garden, and past the Rodin museum, which we plan to visit soon. Came home and relaxed, had a light dinner, and got to bed at a reasonable hour for the kids, which is funny, because we are now considering midnight a reasonable hour!!

Petit Palais-Musee de Beaux-Arts de la Ville de Paris

We got up a little on the late side, today, though we had no big plans. We hardly needed any breakfast since we were still stuffed from last night! We got ready and left and walked down to the Petit Palais. --How to stand out on a Paris street--by Miles--Wear tie dye!

There is a free museum there, so we thought we would check it out. Again what an incredible building, every detail is so beautiful, we just try and take it all in. Here are some photos from this excursion. Here is the door to get in....
Here is the ceiling....
Here is the tile floor....
Here is is all together...
Of course the photos don't do it justice. We saw a nice exhibit of paintings of the "decorative arts" in the 19th Century Naturalism and Realism style. Gigantic paintings of battles, cows, workmen, then in another room we saw "Art under Louis the XV, and XVI", with unbelievable tapestries, furniture, like writing desks with spindly legs, and amazing inlaid wood, Dishes with gold leaf and cloissonee boxes, watches and clocks and stuff.

We started feeling hungry and went out in search of sandwiches. We crossed over the Seine, to the Left Bank, again, here are some ducklings we saw. Way cute.

Then we saw a store with ceramic Tintins for 5oo euro....except for the price, we thought this Captain Haddock statue would look good in our yard...
We found our lunch in a little brasserie, and then made our way to a park with a little playground. We tried taking Metro back, because we had walked quite a long way, and thought we would get a pass. The first woman told us we needed photos for our pass, which we thought was weird, but took the metro to the stop where she told us we could do that. When we got there, we learned that those are only for Paris residents. So we just got some tickets and took the long way back to our apartment, which was fun because part of that metro was above ground so we got to see some more sights. Then off to Monoprix for dinner fixins (salad and chicken) and while we were inside it started RAINING. A LOT. So we dodged raindrops all the way home, ate, and are again trying for a decent bedtime. Wish us luck on that.