A Blogging Photoessay of our Paris visit...

Mornings are for yet another scrumptious breakfast on our apartment balcony. I've had a decadent almond croissant almost every morning - thank god we will be biking soon!

The view from the balcony of Place Contrescarpe - the street market takes place just beyond the red awning down Rue Mouffetard.

Most of our museum visits start with a stroll through Luxembourgh Gardens. Below the palace photo is Peter's wonderful watercolor sketch of the scene. The Gardens are one of our favorite places to tarry and people-watch. 

Peter's pencil sketch of the fantastic topiary in the Gardens - gigantic hedge walls!

There is a lot of overt energy conscious displays in Paris - we loved this all-electric Smart Car juicing up at a street "pump".

The chocolatiers are absolutely over the top with exquisite creations - and yes, this petit bunny does cost 180 euros. Maybe next Easter...

The Rodin museum mansion was closed for renovations but the Sculpture gardens are worth the visit.  Peter sketched the lovely figure in the foreground as we soaked up the serenity. Much of the mansion content has been re-displayed in a temporary exhibit so we didn't miss much!

A great skyline view from the Rodin Museum gardens - the gold dome is Les Invalides (left) and the Eiffel Tower is peeking up to the right.

Within Les Invalides is Napoleon's tomb. The scale is breathtaking and this outer sarcophagus contains many more inner sarcophagi with Napoleon in the very center of the boxes. This lies in the middle of a grand recessed space with a dome above (see skyline photo above) that rivals our Capitol  Building In D. C. ...

A display of cavalry dress and tack in Les Invalides - note the amazing amount of metal in this bit. Little wonder the horse is depicted with a gaping mouth. I assume these must have all been uncontrollable stallions based upon the severity of the bits!

Among the neato objects in the Museum of Arts and Metiers was this wood and carbon fiber bicycle.

We also spent time in the Pompidou Center - saw a wonderful Rothko painting (seriously I love Rothko!)

The views from the Pompidou Center of Sacre Coeur were wonderful!

Today (Sunday the 30th) we designated as an "unplanned" day for lazing, strolling, sketching and blogging. These three photos below are our traditional window/balcony shots that we do on every trip for almost every lodging - makes for great memories!

 

And just for good measure, here is the entrance door to our apartment - a nice, low-key pedestrian street by day and a hopping Irish Pub corner by night!

Sunday is a huge market day down Rue Mouffetard and makes for super people-watching - we weren't disappointed!

This woman won our "favorite character of the day" award -she is right out of "The Triplets of Bellville"!

Street music a la Paris from this lovely accordion-player.

Action-packed streets as all of Paris shops and socializes! I even found a scarf in my favorite color to wear for the remainder of our travels. Plan on seeing it in future photos!

It ended up being a perfect day to loiter as temperatures are now in the 90's - but the breeze is lovely...

I thought it would be nice to close this installment of the blog with two wonderful architectural sketches by Peter. He's in artist nirvana right now!

We will be leaving bright and early tomorrow (Monday) AM for the starting point of the bike trip in Brive. Until then, au revoir!

Pre-bike Adventures in Paris - Tuesday 8/25 thru Thursday 8/27

We arrived at our Parisian "home base" around 1 pm on Tuesday feeling quite human due to our crazy but wise decision to upgrade to Business Class. We were sitting at the gate in MSP when Peter overheard the announcement of a special offer (special not so much for price but more for opportunity!) . We debated a bit and finally succumbed when the fully reclining seats were mentioned. We actually slept almost 5 hours in the 8 hour flight, a new record! 

Once we settled into our Air BnB apartment (more on that to follow) we decided to visit the Luxembourgh Gardens and stretch our legs. While the weather seemed threatening the vistas were wonderful - we don't really have any equivalent experience in the Twin Cities.

Peter chilling on one of the countless park chairs. It is a marvel of civility that a huge public garden can maintain this much seating without having to lock or bolt them down.

We turned in early after a bit of grocery shopping - Wednesday morning arrived warm and sunny, and we slept quite late compared to our usual hours at home! It was such fun to make a quick run to the Boulangerie (bakery) for bread and croissants.

A view of the neighborhood - crazy architecture.

Our breakfast spread - soon to be moved to the balcony of our apartment.

The view from our balcony towards Place Contrescarpe - we are on Rue Rollin, a pedestrian street. The bike adds some nice atmosphere! The bakery is to the left of the man in the background...

We eventually gathered momentum and cruised by the Pantheon to buy our 4-day museum passes and have a quick look around the crypt. Then it was down Rue Soufflet and through Luxembourg Gardens to the Orsay Museum, our favorite from previous visits.

Peter poses next to a garden fountain dedicated to the artist Delacroix.

I would have bought this lamp in a heartbeat but it was just a tad too large for my suitcase.

We spent 5 hours at the Orsay and barely made it through all the galleries. We also had a lovely lunch in their top floor cafe, followed by fantastic views of Paris from the museum terrace.

Peter's great photo of Sacre Coeur in the distance as seen through an Orsay clock face.

The fabulous museum cafe - salads were delicious!

Terrace view of the Seine and the Louvre.

Terrace view of Montmartre and Sacre Coeur.

One of our favorite paintings...

This sculpture was called "the Abyss" but I decided it should be "The Migraine".

Detail photo of one of Peter's favorite works. We both agreed we were fortunate to have not been a peasant in the distant past.

On our walk home we encountered this duo of sax and guitar playing "Summertime" - lovely!

Thursday dawned in great contrast to the previous day - cool and rainy.  I did a dash to the bakery for croissants and a baguette and we plotted our plan for the day, with our first stop being the Cluny Museum. This is another favorite - Peter loves the Roman ruins and I love the Unicorn Tapestries so it is a win-win!

The remains of the ancient Roman thermal baths - the frigidairium space is 45 feet high, the largest remaining Roman bath space in France. They are extremely well preserved.

The Unicorn Tapestries are amazing - they date from 1500 and still present some mystery in their meaning and symbolism. They are said to be a representation of the five senses, with a sixth tapestry that is undefined but might represent love, or the heart.

This one is "Taste"

This is the mysterious "sixth sense".

Tapestries and Roman baths make me hungry - so time for crepes at the Cafe Cluny!

That is all for now - we also enjoyed a visit to the Archeological Crypt underneath Notre Dame, which contains a terrific urban history of Paris' Ile de Cite from antiquity to the 19th century. They added some incredible 3-D video re-creations of the ancient settlements, and the construction of Notre Dame cathedral.  The line into Notre Dame itself was way too long for us, so we strolled back to our apartment in the rain and are enjoying this down time before dinner. Will blog again before we leave Monday for Brive and our bike tour!

The Countdown - Detail, details

As boring as it might be, I always start a bike trip blog with a test entry.  It seems to make the rest of the writing, picture posting and uploading seem less stressful (hey, it worked on my Mac, of course it should work on my iPad and iPhone!).  We leave for Paris Monday night and the list of to-do's seem to be getting longer, not shorter.  I should know this by now!  Stay tuned...