Saturday, September 15, 2012

Final Afternoon in Paris


We arrived at the Pompidou Center shortly after it opened at 11 am. We were delighted to discover that it is FREE on the first Sunday of every month. Yea! The line moved quickly because no one needed to buy tickets.  Surprisingly, the museum was not overly crowded.  


The exterior of the museum is fascinating.  All the pipes and ductwork are along the outside. You ride up a clear escalator tube on the outside to get to the upper floors where the artwork is located.


The views from the upper floor are spectacular!  (I did a little tweaking of this photo using the Snapseed app to add a little drama to the photo which was a little washed out.)


The art work is 20th century and very modern.  Not for everyone, but very fascinating.  Here is a closeup of a Chagall painting "Les Maries de la Tour Eiffel" - so wonderful to see the actual bright colors!


Some of the sculpture is placed to take advantage of the amazing view!  You can see Sacre Coeur in the background.


After spending several hours in the museum, we needed some food.  We went to a cafe in the nearby square and had savory crepes - ham and cheese.  These were delicious - a very crispy outer texture that I enjoyed.


We had a view of the colorful Stravinsky Fountain while we ate.  The sculptures represent various musical pieces that Stravinsky wrote including the Firebird.


We then walked down to St. Eustache - we've always enjoyed viewing the soaring Gothic ceilings in this church.  Lots of construction for a new park around the outside, so no exterior photos.




The afternoon light was coming through the stained glass windows and left amazing colored patterns on the floor.

The rest of the day was not so pleasant.  We went down into the Metro to get back to the Gare de Lyon. Normally we have had no problems using the Metro, but there was a spaghetti tangle of metro lines and we had the worst time finding a train that would take us to the station.  Then, when we got to Gare de Lyon, we came up on a different level than we left.  Thus it took us quite a while to find the corner of the  huge station where we stashed our luggage.  Next, we dragged our luggage up and down the various levels to find where the Air France shuttle bus was located.  Finally, when at the airport, we had to locate where the hotel shuttle buses were located and dragged our suitcases up to the highest floor to get our bus.  The whole adventure took us a good 4 hours and I was so glad to finally crash in our hotel.    The final injustice was there was no wifi in the hotel!!!


Next morning, we took a very crowded shuttle bus back to the airport to head home.  The frustrations of yesterday were washed away when we boarded the plane and the attendant said, "We are changing your seats."  My favorite word - UPGRADE!  Business class is so lovely - menus, silverware, and lots of leg room!  A wonderful way to end our journey.






1 comment:

Yarny Days said...

How exciting! Looks like you had a great time!

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