Today we went to the Pompidou Centre. This is another modern art museum. Having been disappointed by the Tate Modern in London we had hopes that this one would be better. And we liked it a lot! So much that it brought tears to my eyes (oh wait, that may have been my allergies...). We decided not to wait in line to the Kandinsky exhbit (we didn't really have the time). It was separate from the rest of the museum. It was a little disappointing but oh well! There were lots of other great paintings that I enjoyed.
The museum also had an amazing view of the city. We saw a gothic church in the distance but couldn't figure out what it was. My mom was drawn to it and really wanted to find out what it was. We had a parisienne salad in a street cafe. We shopped at La FNAC(say "FEE-NAC" and you really feel french). FNAC is a Best Buy Paris style. We needed to buy a memory card for the video camera. We continued strolling through these beautiful gardens near Les Halles. That's when we happened upon the gothic church my mom had been drawn to. This wasn't in any of our travel books or maps, but it was quite beautiful. It was St. Eustache Church. Kristy went around video recording some of the side chapels, altars, and the huge organ. The organ is rumored to be the largest in all of France.
I snapped this picture of "modern" iconic art - it was in one of the side chapels of St. Eustache. This is unlike anything you will ever see in these gothic churches. It follows many of the same principles as icon art, just a newer setting and a controversial model for Mary. Click on the picture below and you will see more detail. Below Mary are discarded car parts and rats.
View from the Museum. Notice how there are no skyscrapers in Paris...we weren't sure if it was law or that no one else wanted to build? We think it's the law...
After that we headed to the Louvre to see more. The Louvre is open later on Wednesdays. We looked through the Northern painters, like Rembrandt, and then viewed the Large Format French paintings. These French paintings were pretty incredible to see in person. There were about 5 in there that I had studied in my Humanities class a year ago and seeing them up close and in their grand form was a completely different experience than in my textbook. Mom saw several that she had studied in her class on the Louvre.
Napoleon's Apartments - we got a facebook tip from my Mom's cousin Theresa to go see these. We were really glad not to miss them. They were incredible. We have never seen anything so opulent before. We suspec this is a preview for what we are going to see tomorrow at Versailles!
The newest culinary rage in Paris (or so we hear) are little Asian restaurants that just have food in their see-through cases, sort of like all the bakeries and patisseries in here. It's a much quicker option than sitting down at a restaurant for dinner. Since it was later in the evening we opted for this. It was actually quite good and we can understand why these shops are the new thing here in Paris.
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