Our Paris Adventure: Day Three (15 February)

Our museum passes started today and so we began our culture crawl at a museum about five minutes from our hotel, the Musée National du Moyen Age, a lovely collection of artifacts from the Middle Ages that has been open since 1843.

The tapestries were amazing, especially The Lady and the Unicorn series for which the museum is known. Also especially striking were the thirteenth-century sculpture fragments in the interior courtyard,


and the incredibly vivid colours in many of the paintings.
As we exited the museum, I noticed a lovely image of a sundial and a reminder that spring was on its way.

The second attraction of the day, included with our pass, happened to be at the top of our hotel’s street: the Panthéon, a former church that was transformed in 1791 into a burial place for France’s national heroes.
Although the motto above the entrance only makes reference to the "great men" inside, there is one woman buried in the Panthéon’s lower level maze of tombs and, on our visit, her tomb was the most decorated with tokens left by the public.
While most of the tombs are simple, like Madame Curie’s, some are a bit more ostentatious, like Voltaire’s:
Unfortunately, the upper levels of the Panthéon are not open to the public during the winter (so we didn't get a chance to take in the views across Paris), but the main level is beautiful
and features a striking representation of Foucault’s 1851 pendulum that proved the rotation of the earth around the sun:
On our way toward the Seine, we came across another mosaic by Space Invader:
Last time we were in Paris, the lineups to get into Notre Dame were always much too long to join. Although part of the advantage of the museum passes (which we also had last time) is that you get to bypass queues at most attractions, some, including Notre Dame, don’t permit this. This time, we were lucky, and there was no lineup to enter the church and only a short line to access the towers, so in we went! The interior of the church is incredible,




as is its Gothic exterior.



The views from the towers are spectacular, with lovely sightings of the Eiffel Tower,

Sacré Coeur (way at the top right),
and the Panthéon (which really made us understand the wonderful views of the Latin Quarter that its outside upper levels must allow, considering the building's domination of the area).
After descending way too many tiny, swirling stone steps (which we had also worked hard to ascend!), we returned to the square in front of Notre Dame and had a peek (courtesy of our pass) at the archaeological crypt that lies beneath the open space. Many Gallo-Roman and newer fragments were discovered when the buildings that used to fill the square were removed:
Since the day was turning out to be more like spring than winter, we decided to head to the Rodin Museum (also on our pass), since part of its attraction was its garden full of sculpture, which absolutely called out for a sunny afternoon.



The interior of the museum was also filled with treasures:


Afterwards, we went in search of a picnic lunch, and every peek into a food shop had me mimicking the expression of this girl outside this most tasteful pâtisserie:
We ate our lunch on a bench overlooking the Seine and topped it off with this yummy chocolate and pistachio brioche.
After some time wandering around the Left Bank, including my much-anticipated stop at La Grande Épicerie, a sit in a serene square (complete with atmospheric benches in the park and on the surrounding wall),
and more gazing in food-shop windows,
we dropped off our afternoon purchases at the hotel and went to the Musée d’Orsay for their Thursday late opening. Our museum passes definitely came in handy at the d’Orsay, since the line to get in was staggering, but we got to use a different door for passholders and were able to enter immediately! We both love, love, love the d’Orsay, both for the art of its spaces.

and for the art that fills its spaces—for example, the wonderful collection of Art Nouveau furniture,




Piet Mondrian (with nary a geometric shape in sight),

Vincent van Gogh,
Claude Monet,
Gustave Caillebotte (a painter with whom I wasn't familiar, but on both my visits to the d’Orsay, I’ve been struck by this painting, titled “Raboteurs de parquets”),
Edgar Degas,
Edvard Munch,
and Pierre Bonnard (as I’ve said already in other posts, one of my favourites),


We found out that part of the reason for the long lineup was that tonight was one of only two annual “student nights” when art students from across Paris were stationed in various rooms, ready to engage in discussion about the art. We talked in English with one student about a painting and talked in French with another student about the Bonnard sculpture in the last photo above. Since I was surprised to learn that Bonnard had worked in sculpture, I wanted to find out more—with my incredibly halting French and the student’s nonexistent English, we stumbled through our discussion, but I appreciated the opportunity to learn more with the work in front of me. By the time we left the d’Orsay, it was almost 10:00 P.M., and we were pretty tired and hungry, so we grabbed a quick bite at a sidewalk crepe stand
and returned to our hotel to dig into our Valentine’s Day chocolate for dessert—a perfect end to a busy day filled with history, culture, art, wandering, and delicious food on the go.