Les Invalides and the D'orsay: Mid week of our last week in Paris

Bella feels that it is her duty to waive to every metro driver she sees- She's received some wonderful smiles and waves back, too!

We got to bed so late after our dinner with our friends Paz, Ricardo and their kids (who humble us with their fluent speaking of 4 languages, 3 of which their kids speak as well. sheesh!) that we didn't actually wake up until 10 o'clock... and this is unheard of for me (officially- at least prior to this trip- a morning person). But anyway, as one might imagine, we didn't make it out of the apartment until around lunchtime, and we had a big list of things to do which made us a bit worried (Les Invalides, Museee D'orsay, dinner and a movie). Indeed, we were to conquer our list and enjoy doing it, although it was a fairly schizophrenic day.

Firstly, for some reason I had a mistaken impression that Napoleon was a 'bad guy'. Where I got this notion I'm not sure, but Les Invalides did change my view quite a bit. Les Invalides (for all of our prior trips to Paris neither Sven nor myself had really thought- or wanted to- come here) is a complex of buildings in the 7th which contains museums and monuments relationg to France's military history, as well as a hospital and a retirement home for war veterans, the building's original purpose. It was surreal for us to see this massive complex (really, considered a town of soldiers by some- it can hold 4,000 inhabitants!) as both a tourist mecca and a living work and recovery space for France's soldiers. It contains chapels (one for the soldiers, another for royalty), 15 courtyards and a court of honor for military parades. The royal chapel is quite interesting.

The Église du Dôme is topped with a brilliant gold Baroque dome and fronts the massive Les Invalides complex. Once used for royalty, its current purpose is to house the (exhumed) body of Napoleon and many of his family members, as well as display many of Napoleon's achievements. The most striking thing for us about Les Invalides- you walk into these massive- Massive- gold doors into the church. Your eye is drawn to the altar, which looks conspicuously like the altar of St. Peter's in Rome, but then you are drawn towards a gigantic cavern in the floor of the church and you almost forget about the altar's existence... purpose even. The object IN the cavern is very disconcerting... the size of a grand piano (on stilts), luscious rich wood, and surrounded by immense carvings of women (in the manner of Sumerian votive offerings- just staring at the object). The object, of course, would be the tomb of Napoleon, brought here in 1840, 19 years after he died in exile (on orders of King Louis-Philippe). His tomb is actually 6 separate tombs ("so he doesn't stink?" said Eilidh) and is surrounded by inscriptions and carvings of his great victories and his main achievements (like building projects, established constitutions, introduced law codes, put an end to feudalism, fashioned well-organized regimes and cultivated edification, science, literature and the arts). I'm not sure we left feeling that Napoleon was a hero, but we definitely left feeling like we needed to re-set our 'good guy, bad guy' history clock.

Dome of the church of Les Invalides

Napoleon's tomb

Heading to the tomb

Beneath the altar

Napoleon

Some of Napoleon's deeds: squelching strife amongst the people (literally)

It was a bit too surreal for all of us. We left to have some coffee, then braved the museum, which I sort of dreaded. However, there were some bright spots. Chicken canons (oh, joy!). Shiny swords. huge screens (low enough for kids to study) with English explanations that detailed famous battles. various military uniforms. Sven wasn't as interested as we thought he might be, so we all decided to leave after about an hour. (hurrah! before we were truly bored... as is, we still all agreed that it was interesting, just not up our alley). However, before we exited the building I pleaded my case to the others about going to the bottom floor to learn a bit about Charles de Gaulle, who is someone who I've been very curious about since visiting the French Resistance museum in Bordeaux. This floor was strange- very ultra modern, all clear glass and TV screens and narration that is supposed to start when you stop in various confusing spots- but before we left we decided to watch the movie on de Gaulle. And it nearly (and in my case did) brought us to tears. The fact that I didn't know anything about this man is embarrassing and sad.

Charles de Gaulle was the dominant political leader and grand figurehead of France during and after World War II. De Gaulle was a career soldier in the French Army who had been wounded and held prisoner during World War I. He rose to the rank of general and was serving as France's minister for National Defense and War in June, 1940, when France capitulated to Germany early in World War II. DeGaulle escaped to Britain, where he made a famous broadcast calling on the French people to resist (earning him the nickname of the "Man of June 18, 1940"). DeGaulle formed the Free French forces and led the provisional government that ruled France after it was retaken from Germany. After the war he was elected head of the French government, a post he held (over various decades) for many years. But it was his years in Britain (while Hitler controlled France) that truly were remarkable (helping to coordinate resistance efforts, letting the allies know that not all France was on Hitler's side, being the face of France). His efforts, among many, were brave, dangerous and truly unthinkable (to feel that your country has been taken over by the forces of Naziism, and to have to leave to fight against it is truly unimaginable to me).

After Les Invalides we walked to the D'Orsay museum where we only had about an hour to look around, but we all enjoyed the massive dark Courbets, stunning Van Goghs and Gaugins (photos on the next day). We were mostly immersed in watching Isabella get so caught up in the paintings and we relished our 20 minutes of sitting with Bella while she sketched paintings, and loved watching little old ladies come over, ignore the Van Goghs, and ooh and aah over her sketch (while Bella was totally oblivious, just looking back and forth between the painting and her sketch book). After our short visit (we promised each other to come back the next day) and as the doors were closing, we escaped for a cold walk across the Seine (brrrr... definitely below freezing) and a fantastic dinner at a Japanese restaurant, then to a movie theater by the Opera house where we all giggled through the Disney Rapunzel (3D) movie in English. Mostly, anyway. Bella was in our laps for the last half sniffling back tears and Eilidh was diverting her eyes pretending to clean her nails. But all was well. The guy got the girl, the movie ended with laughter, and we were back home by 11:00. Here's to trying to get out of bed by 9 tomorrow!

Chicken cannon!

Massive doors of the museum

learning about French battles.

General De Gaulle

from: http://www.bloguez.com/uploads/img_19/199488/ujp_charles-de-gaulle-
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The view back towards Les Invalides.

Les Invalides in the background.

Outside the D'Orsay

A hunchback or Bella on top of daddy?

Oh.
Opera house at night.

Nerds.

Sneaking in a raspberry tart.

Wednesday, December 15- Well, 9 o'clock was overrated. By 10 we were up and after various organizational duties (relating to packing to go home) we finally left well the apartment around noon. But with just a few days left of these days where we can have such luxuriously slow mornings, we decided not to feel guilty about it. Our first stop was to Sven's friend's gallery in the 6th. Julian Flack (of the Flack gallery) is someone whom Sven met in Boulogne (he specializes in indiginous art from around the world) and they made a wonderful connection. Indeed, he was lovely. The shop was absolutely stunning, and in a spot near St. Germain that was filled with galleries of all types (we saw a gallery where the lovely modern art, when one looked closely, was actually composed of all sorts of painted dead meat). We looked around his gallery a bit and then he took us out to lunch at the amazing Alcazar restaraunt, filled with loads of art dealers and shoppers. The lunch was fantastic- The kids ate hearty roasted chicken and vegetables with an amazing mushroom cream sauce (simple food with an amazingly complex sauce- good concept). I had quinoa that came in three individual size mini-le creuset pots (one the quinoa, one the roasted tomatoes, one the eggplant puree). Sven and Julian had steak and home-made french fries. All was divine, and it was lovely to talk with Julian about his travels around the world collecting indiginous art, and he quizzed us about getting to Alaska.

Julian

After lunch, Sven went back to his gallery to photograph a few items while the girls and I walked for about 15 minutes along the Seine towards the D'Orsay museum. Before heading in, though, we had a little Christmas shopping expedition that resulted in various little things, ultimately with Parisien logos. We then headed into the D'Orsay where we all got stuck in the first rooms we went into (Renoir and Degas) as the girls sketched some wonderful interpretations of their favorites. We soaked in the art nouveau rooms (with stunning renditions of some complete rooms from France in the 20s), then headed off to the insanely huge St. Lazare metro stop (a space as large as Kodiak's downtown underground- with more stores!) to buy a couple new bags to get us home.





from: http://www.ubault.fr/wp-content/uploads/2008/03/orsay.jpg

Exterior of the D'Orsay Museum



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Bella's version

Manet's Olympia with a prostitute and black servant- making fun of the famous Venus paintings from men's parlors of hundreds of years ago.

from: http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3178/2948000684_455da5eecd_z.jpg

Van Gogh's self portrait

from: http://farm1.static.flickr.com/161/340053149_1024713fed_z.jpg

Degas' dancers

from: http://www.impresjonizm.art.pl/degas/degas21.jpg

Outside the D'Orsay

A jump back on the metro brought us back to Rue Mouffetard where we visited- again- a Turkish restaurant that we had enjoyed previously. We sat around and talked for a while (and watched Arabic Star Search) as we waited for our friend Celine from Boulogne (who has visited Kodiak twice and is now starting her PhD on modern Alaskan art). We enjoyed a fun, relaxing dinner with her and then drug her back to our house for a while to let our kids torture her (Eilidh calls her 'smiling Celine' because of her sweet disposition and constant smile). After a racous session of reading Horrid Henry to the girls we finally got ourselves off to bed. With just three more days in Paris we are intent on enjoying ourselves.

Hard to see, but the chickens hanging cheerfully above the display case come fully feathered :-)

bringing home the new bag- on Rue Mouffetard.