Paris Day Ten

The first part of this day was beautiful.  We had a relaxing morning of some stretching and yoga and computer work.  We were trying to do a shorter day to help Kim's feet.  She is having a lot of trouble with blisters on some toes and it's becoming very painful as the blisters pop and start again. 

Unfortunately, just a morning off didn't solve the problem, nor does nightly soaking and daily covering with various bandages and mole skin.  If you have any ideas we welcome them!

After our slow morning we headed to the Pompidou Museum under a partly sunny sky.  The Pompidou is a modern art museum.  It is very interesting.  First, you have to take in the actual building.  The building was built turned inside out.  The escalators, elevators, air and water ducts have all been placed on the outside.  The escalators are clear and you can see them climbing up the 6 story building in the above picture. One gets a great view as you move from floor to floor.  All other pipes are different colors, air conditioning ducts are blue, water pipes are green, and electricity lines are yellow. 

You can see these colors in different areas of the Pompidou, including the ceilings and the outside areas.

This museum is very interesting.  There is a big square outside of it with lots of performance artists and people just hanging out.  For example, in the picture below there is a woman playing a didjeridu.  In addition to the museum floors, there are large open areas with computers, a public reference library, and a documentary research and information center intended for  modern and contemporary art history researchers and more.

The top floor of the museum had a temporary Matisse exhibit.  The fifth floor had a large collection of artists from the 1905 to 1960.  There was a lot of focus on artists like Picasso, Matisse, and others involved in the cubism and abstract movements.

The fourth floor was focused a lot of visual arts since the 1960's and the third floor contained the libraries and a special exhibit of Art Spiegelman's work.  He's an illustrator and cartoonist that focuses on adult illustrations. 

After spending the afternoon at the Pompidou, we headed to the other side of the Les Halles district for a lovely two hour wine tasting we had scheduled.  We tasted 5 wines and 1 champagne, led by an expert in the field.  He was very good and our focus was French wines.  Kim and I really enjoyed learning a lot about the different regions of France and not only how to taste wines, but how to read French wine labels! 

I would definitely suggest the wine tastings and the wine bar at O'Chateau, very well done.  Kim and I enjoyed a small cheese plate with our wine tasting.

We were surprised to note as we came up from our wine tasting that it was raining and not just raining but pouring!  We only made it a block before ducking into a random restaurant for dinner.  I love that Kim is willing to just try something.  Earlier in my stay we had a fun night at a restaurant focused on food from Madagascar with a waitress that spoke no English.  Our waitress last night also spoke very little English, but we managed!

It was still pouring when we left and we walked all the way home.

As Kim unlocked our door, I stopped in our little downstairs Patisserie for some dessert.  It was hard to decide so I got more than we needed, but they were all desserts I haven't had and my time is getting short!

I'll try to describe each dessert:  Top - I don't know the name but it was like a little cake that was a very heavy angel food topped with nuts.  Right - A Mille-feuille.  This is layers of flaky pastry with a vanilla custard in-between.  Last: A Carmel Tart.  These were all wonderful with a glass of French Chardonnay and good conversation.  We still aren't tired of each other!  :)  Time to get ready for another day, au Revoir.