Playtime in Paris

Last weekend we left the cats and dog behind to make a trip to Paris. Via the train (SNCF), we found a reasonably priced hotel in the Marais as part of a deal. We enjoyed meals and sightseeing with one of Ed's college roommates, his wife, and her sister and brother-in-law. (Unfortunately, or fortunately if you're so inclined, Kaye's camera was misbehaving, so we have a limited number of pictures from this trip.)

We visited the Musée de Cluny  (now officially the Musée National de Moyen Âge, Museum of the Middle Ages), which was a real treat. It's a renaissance house, built around the remains of a Roman bath, showing art and artifacts from the middle ages.

The Lady and the Unicorn tapestries are shown here, along with a big series of tapestries on the life of St Stephen (exhumed after 417 years looking not a day older than the day he died). Especially interesting were the remains of early 13C statues of the 22 kings of Judah from that were removed from the façade of Notre Dame during the revolution. (They've since been replaced by replicas.) These were found in a Parisian garden in the 1970s and are now displayed in the frigidarium of the Roman bath.

After a chilly walk through the Tuileries garden, we visited the Orangerie, which has been remodeled since we last visited a long while ago, and now shows Monet's water lilies (Les Nymphéas) in the setting where they were painted, two oval-shaped rooms with long walls, four paintings per room.

And, of course, we're in Paris, so here's the mandatory picture of the Eiffel tower, this time as seen from the Pont Royal.

Before we left, we had a walk around the Place des Vosges in the rain, staying under the arcades and admiring the many art galleries. 

Our departmental elections have brought a turn to the right for the Charente, after eleven years being leftish. Sigh.

March in the Charente has been significantly drippy. The ground did dry enough at one point so that the lawn could be mowed. But the continued rain has insured more growth.