30 July 2013

PARIS DAY 5

Day 5 was another "museum" day, though we only actually went to one museum! We started out with a wonderful croissant from our favorite local boulangerie - so glad we found a tasty one by our apartment! Really, one euro for a croissant is probably the best thing in Paris. We walked down the street to a super rad, super old tower to eat our breakfast by. Can't get enough of the parks everywhere either.


 Then we headed to the Pantheon, which was super awesome. Not sure if it counts as a museum, but I was surprised to find a bunch of amazing, enormous art inside!


Of course, the gorgeous architecture, I was already expecting :)


Guess no one else wanted to visit the Pantheon this morning!



The photo above shows me with Sainte Genevieve, the patron saint of Paris. She is awesome, let me tell you. Basically she saved the whole city of Paris from Attila and his huns by prayer.


Owen Godzilla-ing it up at the Pantheon.


So, we didn't even know this, but apparently there are some crypts underneath the Pantheon that are pretty famous and creepy, so of course we had to check it out. I wasn't really looking to do any creepy things in Paris, but this one was pretty cool. And it was so nice and cool outside, which was great because we'd had some hot weather! Awesome place to check out in this city with no A/C...


Owen being irreverent at the crypts, trying to break one open...


Visited the burial site of Victor Hugo - very cool!


Owen's decided where he wants to be buried.


We got some lunch at Eric Kayser, which was super tasty. We had a little sandwich on a baguette which was yummy of course, and then this amazing couscous salad, tabbouleh...


I took a photo of it so I could remember what it was like and try to recreate it at home. It was so simple, but we really liked it!

We went to a few different stores in between, lots of different art stores and creative things. If I was super into spending money on artsy things, Paris would definitely be the place to go! Even still, it was really fun to visit and see a lot of beautiful things.


This store apparently was were Picasso used to buy his paint, so that's cool.

Afterwards, we went to Notre Dame again since I kind of messed it up last time...



The inside was lovely once again, and we wanted to use our pass to go to the top of the Towers of Notre Dame. Guess what? Another separate line! Yeah, there are no signs or anything, so that was awesome. Luckily we found the line after we waited in one line already, and this other line was SUPER long and moved super slowly because they only let 15 people in at at time to get to the top, and they are spaced out like 15 minute apart. But, we were already there and we needed to go to the top or else!


Since the line was long and we were a little peckish, Owen ran to a cupcake store that was around the corner and had super awesome reviews on the offline Trip Advisor city guide app (HIGHLY recommend this if you're going to Paris!!). We shared a strawberry lemonade cupcake, which was amazingly flavorful, and the frosting was really special. I've never had anything like it before, it had kind of a meringue flavor and it was super creamy and YUM YUM!


About to go up the stairs!


View from the top! Loved the view of the whole city, including the Eiffel Tower which was pretty exciting.



Owen obviously was super into the creepy gargoyles. It is amazing how they are all so different and yes, creepy!



We waited in another line (YAY!) to go to the very tippy top of the belfry area, where we got a 360 view of the city -- here's the other side of the island!

After Notre Dame, we had a little extra time, so we decided to stop by the Musée Cluny on the way home. This museum is also known as the Museum of the Middle Ages, and it had a LOT of tapestries. Tapestries, tapestries, tapestries galore. Also some altar pieces. And more tapestries.


And would you believe it, they only had one room with swords and armor! What kind of medieval museum only has one room with swords, come on.


Also some heads of saints. A little creepy...


The museum used to be the Hotel de Cluny, which was originally built in 1334, so that's pretty old.


Afterwards we went to Centre Georges Pompidou, the modern art museum. It was pretty awesome, because it was just two streets away from our apartment! The outside of the building is just wild - the other side is even cooler but it faces the street so...getting a picture could be a little tough. That big tube across the front is an escalator that is like a greenhouse, just to warn you.


Modern art is so weird. Some of it we really like, and some is just so weird. But it's fun to see something completely different!


This one was super odd -- looks like a bunch of nylons hanging down, and inside each dangly thing, there was a bunch of spices so it smelled really interesting too!

 
Yay! Picasso! There was actually a lot of Picasso at this museum, which was pretty fun. Love that guy. He's so weird and different.



And there was some stuff we just didn't get. Red, green, blue. Wow.


Even better -- three white canvases. Seriously. There was nothing on these canvases. WHY DIDN'T I THINK OF THAT?!??!!!


This room was actually pretty cool. Loved the colors and it was very trippy. Especially against Owen's multicolor shirt. Yeah.

And then we had falafel for dinner.

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