Cité de l'Architecture et du Patrimoine

Today, our last full day in the Cité we decided to go over to this museum, which opened in 2007, and we hadn't been to it. It's housed in the Palais de Chaillot wing where the Theatre is located, the opposite wing from the old Musee de l'Homme. It has great views of the Eiffel Tower from lots of it's windows and from the top, a great view towards Sacre Coeur. I was taken by the views. The displays on the first floor were of casts of catherdral entrances, full size, it was pretty amazing. Here's C taking a photo of the back of one of the casts. There were lots of models of buildings, too. Very interesting. Upstairs, they had contemporary building models, photo intallations, and a replica of an apartment designed by le Corbusier. Another section had replicas of stained glass windows and frescos.
On the 4th floor, they had an installation of Elle Decor rooms. One room, set for a dinner party, had the walls covered in trompe l'oeil wall paper. Doesn't it look like there are open doors and hallways? Not! It's a flat wall. C might have some photos of the plaster casts, otherwise, you're left to wonder or check out the link above.

The Metro ride back was crazy. The trains were so packed with people and walking through the tunnels to get to the connecting train was a real experience. We were really happy to exit at St. Paul, into the still light evening.

This is "au revoir" from Paris, unless I'm able to get on-line before we leave on Wednesday morning. I leave you with this very cool image of the Eiffel Tower that I took today through a window (with a screen.)

Using the Metro and seeing our reflection

I may have mentioned this before, but the Metro station right in front of the Cité des Arts (Pont Marie, Line #7) no longer has a ticket counter. They've installed these machines and the person at the window only gives information. The most information he gives is: no tickets here, use the machine, or something to that effect. The first time we saw this machine we were a bit confused, but after we did it a couple times, it was perfectly simple. You make your choices by rolling the bar below the screen. You can use coins (but not bills) or a credit card. It even gives change and a receipt. Of course, it does help to be able to read French. However, if you look puzzled, some French person (or other American who's figured it out) will help you. It never fails, whenever we ponder over a map in the metro, someone will come up and ask if they can help us. In French first, and then in timid English.

I can't help but snap our photo whenever I spot us in a mirror. Oh, look, here we are again!!

Salon des Vins

Lucky us, we got to attend the Salon des Vins, where independent wineries show their wines. K. & R. gave us a ticket, which entitled us to entry and 2 wine glasses for tasting. We had to take 3 metros to get there, as it was at the Porte de Versailles, which is the location for many large expos halls and sports arenas. Just getting there after leaving the metro, on moving sidewalks, through long corridors, up escalators, down escalators was kind of overwhelming, then we entered the hall. WOW! All those people, all those wineries. all those wines. Chuck and I looked at each other, what do we do now. After walking a bit, I went up to a stand, an Alsacian winery, with no one at it, and asked the man to taste a Riesling. We ended up tasting two, and that "broke the ice" as it were, for us. What a fun experience. All the wine tasted pretty good to us! We left happy and with two wine glasses as souvenirs.