Our Paris Adventure: Day Four (16 February)

In a strange coincidence that I didn’t notice until I posted yesterday’s photos, we began today at the museum indicated by the sign behind Bob in yesterday’s last photo, the Musée Eugène Delacroix. A lovely pair of buildings with a peaceful garden, the small museum was a nice easing into the second day of our museum pass.

From there, we headed to the Ile de la Cité to see two places that were practically side-by-side: the Conciergerie and Sainte Chapelle. The Conciergerie,
a former palace that was converted into a prison best known for being the site of Marie Antoinette’s captivity, and currently the location of the Paris law courts,
was an odd mixture of “recreations” from the era with a hefty dose of morbid curiosity thrown in—not a must-see, in my opinion. Sainte Chapelle is known for its glorious stained glass, and even though today started out quite cloudy, the glass was still spectacular:


We decided that since we were already on the Ile de la Cité, we would have lunch on the island and chose to have menus (multi-course lunches with limited choices for each course, not to be confused with an English “menu,” which is a “carte” in French!) that were absolute bargains (at €12) in the intimate, beautiful restaurant. Of course, it didn’t hurt that Berthillon ice cream was one of the dessert offerings, which we both predictably chose.

After lunch, we headed over to the Marais to do some shopping. Unlike in Canada, French sales are strictly regulated by the government, with “official” sales periods happening only twice a year, once in the summer and once in the winter. We happened to be in Paris during the winter sale period, which ended on 17 February, and since today was the second-last day of the sales, we looked in quite a few shops and both bought a decent amount of clothing for much less than London prices. Along the way, the charm of the Marais continued to win us over with its variety of sights, such as fourteenth-century timbered buildings,
lovely attention to signage,
and a variety of street art.

We took a break from our shopping to make a return visit to the lovely Musée Picasso, a place that we only got a rushed peek at last time since we arrived fifteen minutes before closing. This time, we knew what a wonderful place the museum was, so we allowed plenty of time for wandering through its airy spaces


taking in Picasso’s remarkable imagination as he tackled a variety of styles. From “Landscape with Two Figures,”
to “Man with a Guitar,”
to “Owl in an Interior,”
to “The Kiss,”
to “Bust of a Woman,”
to “The Kitchen,”
we walked from room to room constantly intrigued by Picasso’s work. By now, the better part of the day was over, and we once again headed back to the hotel to drop off our bags. From there, we wandered a bit, crossing paths with a mural made even more colourful by the typically light Parisian buildings
and had some fantastic coffee sitting at an outside table with a view of the nearby fountain
and the surrounding buildings, including this top-floor flat with its beautiful timbered ceilings.
We needed our caffeine energy, because our last stop of the day was the Friday late-night opening of
Having been to the Louvre before, we knew that we should just pick a small area and focus on seeing that area alone, or risk the common Louvre ailment of art exhaustion. Gazing at the already overwhelming map, we decided to head over to the Decorative Arts department, starting with the Napoleon III apartments. Neither of us had any idea that such a series of rooms existed in the Louvre. Built in the middle of the nineteenth century as government reception areas, the place oozes money, power, and over-the-top glitz.




From there, we wandered with some destinations in mind, but mostly took a very meandering path up, down, and across various sections of the museum. If not quite the d’Orsay, the glass-roofed courtyard of French sculpture was beautiful
and some of the most interesting views of outside came from within.


We’d seen the Venus de Milo and the Mona Lisa last time, and didn’t make any special effort to see them again, mindful of the crowds that we assumed would surround both pieces, but they’ve both changed location in the last year-and-a-half and so we came across them anyway. The former was at about a “five” on a ten-point Louvre-crowd scale,
and the latter was at about a “two.” I suppose that’s the benefit of visiting Paris in the winter! One big change since our last visit is that the Mona Lisa wing of the Louvre is now one of several areas in which photography isn’t allowed. We talked with the security guard standing directly beside the Mona Lisa (and the six-foot sign reminding the public about the no-photo rule) and he told us that this change occurred about a year ago and that the rationale behind it is to allow more people to be able to see the Mona Lisa, since crowds such as this one, from our last visit in July 2005,
would move on faster without stopping to take photos. (Of course, I’m sure the added revenue at the gift shop from tourists who don’t want to leave without some souvenir of the painting doesn’t hurt either!) In any case, we were able to stand right in front of the painting and have a good, long look—something we certainly weren’t able to do in 2005’s crowd. After a few hours of walking around, mostly taking in sixteenth-, seventeenth-, and eighteenth-century Dutch and French paintings, it was time to get on the metro
in search of dinner, which ended up being yummy classic brasserie dishes. Today ended with a lovely late-evening walk across the Seine, talking with Parisians out walking their dogs and constantly looking up and around us at the beautifully lit buildings and streets.