Off the beaten path

Posted 5/2/2014

I thought I'd do a quick post on a few things that we've seen that just caught my eye, not necessarily big tourist draws...

Shop windows can be very artistic (this one was near the Odeon Theatre):

... an added bonus if they include a cat!!  (This is a music store.)

Below is a statue of Mihai Eminescu, "le plus grande poete Roumain", in the Latin Quarter, where they appreciate poets:

One of the readers of this blog, who has been to Paris herself, advised me to look online for ideas of what to see in Paris, and I thank her for that.  I found online a woman's description of how she stumbled onto "the cutest street in Paris" (Rue Cremieux), and I went looking for it.
On the way, I crossed a footbridge over the Bassin de l'Arsenal (which becomes the Canal St. Martin), and that was more scenic than I expected:

(The Colonne de Juillet at Place de la Bastille is in the background.)

After a couple more blocks, you seriously lose the scenery-- until suddenly it pops up again in the form of this cute little street!

... with more cat art! (as well as bird and wisteria art).

Oops, we have strayed back on to the Beaten Path... well, we did go see the Tour Eiffel, as did this young woman, who may have come straight from the train station.

We were pleased to see a peace monument nearby, right across from the Ecole Militaire!  The monument has the word "peace" written in many different languages.

Bonne soiree!
LeeAnn

Bones (and other parts... but mostly bones)

Posted 5/3/2014

Yesterday I visited the Galeries d'Anatomie Comparee et de Paleontologie, one of the collection of museums at the Jardin des Plantes.  It was a bit crowded, because many kids had Friday off from school as well as Thursday (Thursday being May Day/Fete de Travail/Fete de Muguet).  (In France this practice is called "faire le pont", or to make the bridge, i.e. to take an additional day off when a holiday falls on Tuesday or Thursday-- a fine tradition, although tourists may complain about some things being closed.)  In any case, it wasn't too bad.

This collection of skeletons, other body parts, and fossils dates back to 1898.  There are more than a thousand skeletons, from nearly every (living) vertebrate you can think of, as well as some extinct ones.


The place is wild.  The skeletons are arranged all facing the same direction, so they appear to be on the march!

The slinky-like structures are python skeletons, and that below is part of an alligator skeleton.

It's a whale!

Vertebrae-o-plenty (all from whales and/or other cetaceans):

Update:  Here is a later photo of my sisters with the baleen whale.  Good times!

 (Interestingly, the French word for whale is "baleine", even though not all whales have baleen.)

There is a mezzanine level which provides overhead views.  Here is the cetacean exhibit from above:

The staircase itself is notable -- as is the entire building, as you can tell from the above photos.

Further ascent leads to the fossil gallery.  At first I thought, ho hum, maybe a bunch of trilobites-- but no.

Scary!!

I was pleased to see the Irish Elk.  One of my favorite early black and white photos, which I took back when I was doing my own developing and printing, is of an Irish Elk antler at the Museum of Natural History at the Smithsonian.

The notes here suggested that the Irish Elk's enormous antlers, though stunning, may have had something to do with its extinction -- just a bit impractical.  Kind of sad.

Is this a real brontosaurus skeleton, I immediately thought?  In the notes, and the other research I've done so far, nothing indicates otherwise.  My word.   [Update:  I looked more closely when I returned with my sisters, and the notes indicate that this is a replica of a skeleton in the Carnegie Museum in the US.  By the way, the correct name is apatosaurus, not brontosaurus.]

(This proves my theory about the brontosaurus.  And it's mine. -- Miss Anne Elk)
(for Monty Python fans only)

The overhead shot of the brontosaurus was taken from another mezzanine level (can you have two mezzanines?).  The walls are lined with cases of fossil specimens.  The drawers shown below are all hand-labeled (as are most of the specimens in the museum), so I assume they are all filled with specimens also, though they did not open.

I mentioned other parts, and these included internal organs (or sometimes entire individuals) in jars.  I found most of these interesting but less aesthetically appealing-- though the display of the simple wolf's stomach, next to its jaw showing its tearing teeth, and the four-chambered sheep's stomach, next to its jaw showing its grinding teeth, was thoughtfully done.

OK, here is the sheep's stomach, nicely labeled.  You can all think about haggis now.

But for aesthetic appeal, there were some nice specimens among the plant fossils:

I'm glad people are enjoying this blog, and I enjoy getting your comments!  Thanks!

A plus,

LeeAnn

Aux Champs Elysées

Posted 5/4/2014

A few days ago, I visited the Orangerie Museum, which is home to the large Monet water lily paintings, done very late in his life, and quite a few other works of interest.  I went in the afternoon, and there was not much of a line at all. 

Afterwards, I decided that I would take the Metro to the Arc de Triomphe and then walk down the Champs Elysees, because it must be done.

Many of the pedestrian crossing signals in Paris (at least they have them) have you cross in two stages, so people are briefly clustered on a small island in the middle of the road with cars whizzing by.  But this allowed me to get this head-on shot:

The Champs Elysees is actually very well suited for urban walking, because the sidewalks are incredibly wide.  Of course, consumerism and capitalism are predominant themes.  (The best part was at the end, so don't give up.)

For example, here is a massive bank building:

I wonder if the Toyota Aygo will make an appearance in the US?  They do seem to have a different selection of cars over here.

Of course, there were also much fancier dealerships to be seen, but one car photo is enough.

I saw a crowd of people waiting to get into Abercrombie & Fitch.  (I had seen a crowd of a somewhat different demographic waiting to get into Louis Vuitton.)  I assume that you have to be a special person to use the big-ass fancy entrance in the foreground, which was being guarded by two guys wearing jeans and/or hoodies:

 Here is another fancy entrance, this time being guarded by guys in suits:

 And yet another, being guarded by... a rocket ship?

Ok, so I was getting jaded, but I did walk down Avenue Montaigne, which has many of the big-name stores, YSL, Chanel, etc. etc.  I saw two young women outside of Gucci, one giddily holding up her two Gucci bags while the other took her picture.  They looked like regular people, so it was actually pretty cute.

But my best sighting was on the other side of the street.  Across the Champs Elysee from the Grand Palais, there is a park, and concealed behind a bunch of shrubbery, so you would barely know it was there, you can find this:

I am pretty sure that this is the puppet theater that was featured in Charade (which I have seen many times).  There was a show going on and children watching!  And the teddy bear in the front row!!!  OMG.  My day was made.

I was pleased to see that the puppet shows seem to have gotten less violent over the years (still a lot of physical humor, but less slapstick bashing).

I also liked the action on top of the Grand Palais, back over on the other side:

I then caught the Metro and returned to my cozy little abode.

A big church and a little park

Posted 5/5/2014

On Saturday, which was a nice sunny day, I planned an excursion to Parc de Monceau in the 8th arrondisement.  After my French-English conversation group*, on the way to my planned Metro station, I stopped by the Church of St. Eustache, which is just north of Les Halles**.  It's a beautiful building:

I saw a few people disappearing into the right side, so I approached, found an inconspicuous "Entree" sign, and entered.  I had read that the pipe organ was the largest in France:

Actually, Wikipedia says that "With 8,000 pipes, the organ is reputed to be the largest pipe organ in France". ...Don't they know for sure?

In any case, here is the console, protected from intruders:

I assume that this elaborate structure is the lectern:

And here is some more of the interior.  I don't seek out churches for their own sake, but I generally like the architecture.

**Les Halles -- gak!  It's a big mall!  On the original site of an ancient marketplace.  However, I did manage to find a restroom in the Starbucks, and to tailgate my way in inconspicuously without having to buy anything.  (As a good friend once said when I fretted about our using a Starbucks' restroom that was "for customers only", "Je suis une cliente de Starbucks!")  So malls can be useful for something.  You really can't do that at those charming sidewalk cafes (which are made less charming by all the smoking in the outdoor seating areas). 

*My conversation groups -- which start with 45 minutes of French conversation, followed by 45 minutes of English -- have been useful overall, but a mixed bag.  They are sponsored by a language school, but there is no real moderation (despite their charging 12 euro per session).  At my first group, the French portion was dominated by a native French speaker yammering on.  That kind of misses the point of the exercise, but there was no one to shut him up.  Trying to interrupt was only moderately successful.  Fortunately, he was not at either of the two later groups I attended.

On to the park -- The Parc de Monceau is a pretty little park with pretty little features.  Like this colonnade and pond:

I had to wait a while to get a decent shot of this footbridge-- first for the photo shoot of scantily clad women draped over it to finish up, and then for the sun to go behind a cloud:

I like the fish-submarine-looking structure on this carousel.  (I'm still not quite sure what it is supposed to be.)

There are a lot of carousels in Paris, which is nice. I also notice that many bookstores feature children's books prominently in the store windows, along with their books for adults.  And then there are those floating boats that can be rented in the Jardin du Luxembourg (which will probably appear in a future post).  And the puppet shows!  So children's interests and culture are taken seriously and are part of the mainstream.  Maybe this is true in other big cities as well, but it has stood out to me here.

Bonne soiree a tous,

LeeAnn