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Published: October 23rd 2010
Centre Georges Pompidou
Looks like something out of Willy Wonka...The first night’s rest in Paris was ok. Garbage trucks start very early, and being around the corner from the Harley/Triumph dealership/repair shop means we are right on the route of their test drives. Got up around 7:30 to 8:30, and slowly got into gear. I headed out to find “the best bakery in the world” to pickup croissants. Our small guide in our room says Boulangerie Beaumarchias is simply the best bakery in the world - I gotta check this out. I plugged the address into my GPS as a backup, and headed out into the chilly morning. Lots of foot traffic this time of the morning - well I guess it is a Friday and I guess people here must work too. I ended up walking all the way down to Bastille without finding the place. I headed back up Beaumarchias and tried to fire up the GPS, but it immediately died on me - ooops, forgot to charge that one. I paid more attention to the addresses this time, and found the little shop across the street on the return trip. I guess I was expecting to find a line around the block or something, but it was
Sculpture in Courtyard
We stumbled onto this courtyard, and were quickly told it was a residence and to get out... a little dinky store with almost nobody there. I quickly got in and out with four (quatre) for under 4 euro. Oh, holding 4 fingers up and pointing at the pile of croissants worked too…
Back to the apartment to enjoy coffee and croissants. I probably wouldn’t call them the best in the world, but they were very good and the perfect start to our day. We got ready, and headed out to see what Paris’s museums had to offer. We hoped to hit the little café around the corner first, to sit and have a little snack, but it was past 10am now, and it seemed most places were done with their morning meals. We decided to continue northwest in the direction of Pompadour and took in the sights of the little meandering streets, shops, and people as they scurried about their late morning routines. We took our time, and didn’t pay too much attention to a specific route. We found ourselves near Pompidou Centre in no time - even too early to actually get in (they open at 11:00 on Fridays). Bruce and Brandee picked up some snacks at a sandwich shop across the street, and enjoyed
some late morning nutrition in the quad area as Charlene and I browsed the little shops that surround the open courtyard in front of Pompidou.
Pompidou Centre is one of the modern art museums of Paris. It’s Huge, and the building itself kinda looks like something out of Willy Wonka. There are 5 massive floors to this building. The top two are part of the permanent exhibits, while the bottom 3 are dedicated to temporary exhibits that come and go. Our plan was to get the two day museum pass as it gave us entry to several museums throughout Paris (and beyond), but we quickly learned that it rarely gives you access to everything at any one site. At Pompidou, for example, it only gave us access to the top two (permanent exhibit) floors. We picked up our passes at the counter (32 euro each), and headed up the escalator tube on the outside of the building to the 4th floor. This floor is dedicated to women in modern art, and was very interesting. Not being a modern art fan, I didn’t completely appreciate everything the place had to offer, but they did have a lot of moving pieces. A
large section of the museum is dedicated to
Nancy Spero, and a very interesting sequence of her life’s work. Was special to see such a transition of someone’s life through their art - and I felt she found some kind of peace in her life in her later years. I would recommend the museum if only for her exhibit alone. We ventured up to the 5th floor, but we got sucked into the crowds of kids showing up for field trips from school. We quickly made our way through this floor, and decided we’d seen enough modern art for today.
We left close to 1:00, and found a little restaurant on the southeast corner of the complex. Lunch was pretty good - little wine and I tried a French beer - not bad. We changed up our plans a little and decided to walk toward the Seine (river) to check out Notre Dame.
The weather was starting to improve by now - the sun was peaking out and it was getting a little warmer. We cleared the bridge to
Ile de la Cite, and arrived at
Notre Dame de Paris by about 3:30. There were large crowds of people in the park area in front.
Brandee and Charlene
On the 4th Floor at Pompidou Having seen our share of cathedrals in Germany and Italy, we weren’t completely awestruck by Notre Dame, but it certainly was an awesome building - construction completed in the 14th century, with major renovations being done in the 19th century following damage sustained throughout the revolution. I had to walk several hundred yards back to get the entire front of the building into a picture. The gargoyles overlooking the upper sections of the cathedral are definitely unique.
There was no wait to get into the cathedral, so we checked that out first. It was fairly crowded, and is certainly a masterpiece in architectural presence. We spent about 30 minutes on the inside before heading out to get in line for the tower walk. We spent another 45 minutes waiting in line for the opportunity to take the circular staircase to the top of the towers - and man was that a workout… We were all showing our age by the time we hit the top of the first stage, but the views were incredible. After a brief photo opportunity, we made our way around the towers, then up another set of stairs (grrrrr), and finally to the top of
Nancy Spero
A large Nancy Spero exhibit the bell tower. We got a brief look at the bourbon (bell) in the North tower (13 tons), and made our final accent to the top of this tower for a 360 degree view of Paris. The weather was absolutely perfect by now, so we got some awesome pictures of the entire Paris landscape - well worth the wait in line. We spent about 10 minutes at the top before our long slow decent down several hundred stairs to the bottom. Once out, we enjoyed people watching in the park in front of the cathedral. There was a wedding couple bringing lots of attention with a photo shoot and a dance routine that attracted a large crowd with their rendition of a hip hop dance.
We continue on along the south parameter of the cathedral, through a small park, the over the bridge to
Ile St.-Louis. A brief walk through the shops in this area, and we headed over the
Pont Marie bridge. We meandered our way back to the apartment and caught some very unique window shopping along the way. We got back to the apartment by about 5:00, and had a brief rest before heading back out again. Bruce’s
back has been acting up, so we tracked down a massage close to our apartment, and he and Brandee setup appointments for Sunday. From there we headed to the Bastille Metro and tried our luck as subterranean mass transit.
We managed to catch the right train (La Defense), and a quick 10 minute / 5 stop trip later we arrived at the
Palais Royal Musee du Louvre (a large subterranean shopping complex below the Louvre). We traversed the sea of shops and attractions, with a brief photo opportunity in front of the Apple Store (Bruce’s eyes light up whenever he sees an Apple Store), and we finally arrived at the museum entrance. By this time it was about 7:00, and the museum was open until 9:45. We decided to split up to see how much ground we could cover. People had warned us how big this place is, but it wasn’t adequate. In the 2 hours we were there we came to realize that we’ll need to come back. This place is WAY too big to see in any one day, and probably best seen broken up anyway. Charlene and I managed to just see just 80%!o(MISSING)f the first floor (and there
are 5 floors). The collections here are so massive and we really only scratched the surface. We met up about 9:00pm, and surfaced near the glass pyramid for some quick photos.
We were hungry, but not in the mood to hunt for a restaurant, so we went to the closest place we could find (100 steps from the pyramid). Dinner was good, but because of our lack of a reservation, we were relegated to eating outside on the patio (and it was getting very cold by now). Bruce, Brandee and Charlene huddled under a heater while we enjoyed the antics of our waiter. Dessert, check, and we were back to the metro for our return to Bastille. Got back to the station about 10:30, and stopped off at a little shop for some morning supplies before getting back to the apartment.
We had a long day, and tried to fit in a lot. We will surely see more of Louvre, but Saturday is Versailles - so off to bed….
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Paulo Robbolo
Paul Anthony Robb
Long Days of Fun
It sounds like you are packing in a lot of great experiences into your days. Keep the great photos coming. Lani especially loved the pix of the Notre Dame gargoyles. Be safe and rest your feet when you can. Paul.