Art & Crepes

Another rainy day in Paris, another several museums visited.

This morning was the Cluny Museum of Medieval Art. The building in which this collection is hoursed is almost a museum piece in itself. It's a really neat old masion, with turrets and towers, probably early 18th century if I had to guess, built over the ruins of a Roman bath. It had lots of interesting stuff from the Middle Ages, including some statuary from the facade of Notre Dame Cathedral that had been defaced during the French Revolution, and later replaced.

The final panel of "The Lady and the Unicorn"

They also had some original stained glass panels from Saint Chapelle that had been replaced during refurbishing. The highlight was the original "Lady and the Unicorn" series of tapestries. All six of them are together in one room, with a detailed written explanation one can sit and read through. We've never seen tapestries this old that are still as vividly colored and so intricately detailed. No one knows who made them, where, or how long it took. But it must have taken years or painstaking labor to get so much fine detail woven in.

The Pantheon in Paris is not the same as the one in Rome. It is a temple of civil religion and the burial place of many of the heroes of France -- everyone from Madame Currie to Voltaire.

We then shifted gears by 600 years or so, taking a circuitous Metro ride (three different trains) to get to the Pompidou Centre (named for the former French president), completed in 1977, and housing nothing but Modern and Contemporary art. It's huge! Some interesting stuff, some wierd stuff, some stuff we liked a lot.

We got the very last available table for two at the little place that is supposed to be the best crepe shop in Paris (at least according to some guidebooks). It was very crowed, and the line to get in was down the block by the time we left. We could tell that the waiter was quite disappointed with our small order. Other tables got candy in the little basket with their bill, but ours just had the bill!

We finished at the Picaso Museum of Paris, which is actually just a few blocks from our hotel. Picasso got around. We visited two of his museums in his native Spain, saw a whole room full of his stuff at the Pompidou this morning, and now he has a whole, large house full of scuptures and paintings. I'd be lying if I told you I understood it all, but a lot of it is kind of neat.

We had dinner on "l'ile" or "The Island." Two islands in the River Seine, Isle de la Cite and Isle St. Louis, are the heart of the tourist area. Based on a guidebook recommendation, we looked for one that was only half tourist trade, the rest pedestrian.

Location:Paris, France