Nearly every day, we cut through the Luxembourg Gardens for a shortcut.
They are really beautiful and there were always a surprising number of people out, even as the week went on and it got much colder. The last day there were a bunch of elderly men playing some sort of croquet-like sport while smoking cigarettes.
We walked past the Cluny Museum of Medieval Art on our first day, and had been looking forward to checking it out. They had a special exhibit on the Merovingians (the people who lived in France during the transition time between the Roman Empire and medieval times). It was by far the highlight. They had a whole bunch of books dating from the 500s. That's so old! I've definitely never seen a 1500 year old book before. I couldn't stop taking pictures of them.
Nearly all the stuff that remains from this time period is religious, because the monasteries were the only source of stability and consistent income.
I took a picture of this room because it looked awesome, and later learned it's from Roman times! It was a bathhouse.
Oh look, another book.
There are also these famous tapestries there, The Lady and the Unicorn, which date from around 1500.
Look how cool Jesus is.
This was a small room that was a chapel in the original mansion where the Cluny is housed today.
After that we went and got sandwiches from the corner store again. We were pretty hooked on these sandwiches.
Then we set out for more museums. Ben wanted to go to the Museum of Arts & Measures, and I knew he would delight in spending hours taking a million photos of obscure microscopes, so we decided to split up. We went together on the Metro and then I walked to the Picasso Museum and he went to the Arts & Measures. Guess how many of us got at least a little lost: Two. But ultimately we both figured out where to go.
The neighborhood around the Picasso Museum (the Marais) is very nice. Old and twisty streets. Most things were closed even though it was a Tuesday afternoon, but this is the Jewish area and it was during Hanukkah so maybe that's why.
The Picasso Museum was doing a joint exhibit of his work with this other guy who makes these tall statues I have seen elsewhere (including Denmark and I'm pretty sure the North Carolina Museum of Art). The two guys didn't actually know each other well, though, and I felt like the whole thing was kind of a stretch to make their works relate.
This is the place where the Paris Museum Pass paid off the most for me, by the way. I asked where to go and they directed me to a small area off to one side with zero other people around. I thought surely this could not be correct, but it was! I walked right in and skipped that entire line! Suckers.
There was some cool stuff in the Picasso Museum, but nothing super famous.
I took another picture of Sacre-Coeur. You can see it from almost everywhere!
Then I walked back to the Museum of Arts & Measures. I only made one tiny wrong turn and realized it after only 5 minutes or so. Then I failed to see the entrance to the museum and walked all the way around a giant city block back to where I started in order to get inside. Ben was still exploring so I looked around at the exhibits for a while and then got a coffee in the cafe and read my book. Then we took the metro back to our hotel.
This restaurant was right on the corner in our neighborhood, and looked so fun and festive that we felt like we were obligated to try it out.
It was terrific! One of the best meals of the trip. We got a seat right by the window, which was nice.
Mmm, bread.
I got a miniature bottle of wine alllll for myself.
Ben ordered escargots.
I got cheese and figs in fried dough. Guess how good it was?
For entrees Ben got steak frites
and I ordered fish, because I wanted something a little on the lighter side. I forgot, though, that I was in Paris - it came in a big, delicious puddle of lemon butter.
This meal was one of the highlights of the trip! We went home and went to sleep and then I woke up with a sore throat. :(
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