France with the family

Our room is what you might call a garret.  It’s probably the original attic but the benefit is that we see the rooftops of the surrounding neighborhood.  It’s almost identical to a stay we had in the Netherlands – I am beginning to think that to accommodate more than two in a room in old European buildings they reconfigure the attic and stick in an extra bed or two under the odd angles of the rooftop.  Fine by me because we get views from the top. 

So for this stay, we have low, angled ceilings and beams that are quite low (Sterling has a dent on the top of his head from not going quite low enough), with screenless windows cut in between.  So, you can stand in between the beams and hang your head out the windows cut into the roof.  Nothing prepared us for the view.  I expected some wonderful rooftop views of the surrounding buildings, but once we got back and it was dark I stuck my head out of the window and to my surprise the view is the Eiffel Tower.  I lie in bed at night reading my Kindle and turn my head to see the Eiffel Tower.  What an unexpected pleasure.

Tuesday we spent part of the day looking for the Bastille.  To Sterling’s great disappointment the site is now an opera house and there is only a small, neglected mall in recognition of this site.  But, then we walked into the Marais district heading back to the Seine.  The Marais is an old section of Paris, largely untouched by Napoleons’ grand scheme of re-creating the city with broad boulevards, grand streets, and impressive buildings.  I guess that Napoleon (the first) was really the first government entity that destabilized neighborhoods for the ‘greater good’.  Paris is wonderful as it is – although traditionalists would argue against the modern (and that would date back to the ‘modern’ buildings from Napoleons’ time).  But, when you wander through the Marais you have the sense of what medieval Paris was like.  In particular around Place des Vosges, you begin to see what these traditionalists are talking about.  There is an intimacy and beauty that is lost in other arondissements.  This is a very special place.

In the Marais, Bill found a museum devoted to the history of Paris called the Musee Carnavalet.  Set in two former townhouses (this doesn’t describe the place in any true sense as combined they have more than 100 rooms).  This museum is a gem and entirely devoted to Parisian art and culture and history – all by way of indigenous art.  Small by comparison to the Louvre – it is still impossible to see in one day  We ran into a young guy from Mountain View (my old neighborhood in the Bay Area) who is a student of French history – he helped us fill in some of the many blanks that we had.  Although Sterling has studied European History and has been helping Bill and I understand many things, we were thankful for the added insight of our young American friend.  We found so much to enjoy that the guards shooed us out of the museum so that they could close.