Visit to the Burgundy countryside (activité culturelle 3)

Okay, here's one of my favorite parts of this trip so far, and the part of my trip that has the best photographs. This may end up being more a visual narrative than a literal one.

This past weekend, Katherine, Judy, and I headed out to visit our friend Amandine out in the French countryside.

B-e-a-utiful. Indescribably picturesque. So indescribable, I'm just going to show you a picture (or five).







Ahhhhhhh and we ate so well out in the countryside, too. For our first meal with the family, we ate Chinese food, which doesn't seem very authentic until you know that Amandine's mother, Vana, is actually Chinese herself. Vana taught us to make spring rolls, a valuable skill I plan to retain and put into full use once I'm back in Provo (or sooner if the opportunity presents itself!) and friend nêms. So delicious.

For dinner that night, we ate a bit more French-ly with grilled sausages and peppers, a full salad, and then cheeses. The next day was Sunday, and after church the whole crowd that had descended on the house in the countryside went on a picnic, where we ate Quinoa tabouleh and crudités of carrots and cauliflower, and of course lots of cheese again!

Mmmm being here in France makes me realize that with just a little effort I could make a lot of really good foods with very little effort. I resolve to cook more next year.

Of course, we did more than eat while out at Amandine's--we also took long naps and walks to aid in digestion. Ah, and what beautiful walking there is to be done! I'm excited to go back in two weeks for another long weekend.

I feel that my experience in the French countryside is far more authentic France than a walk around the Eiffel Tower. I spoke a lot of French that weekend, and interacted with a lot of very French people (okay, and also some French-Chinese people, too). Did I mention we also went to the market? So excellent. That's the spirit of France! Buying fruits and vegetables and cheeses and dry sausages at the local weekly market. Plus the gluten free bread Amandine found at the market = almost like real bread! So good. Thank you, Didine.

Visit to Normandy (activité culturelle 2)

A full on post about my excellent host family is coming later, but here is one really good preface to the many I feel so lucky to live with Nannick:

A guided tour of the castles along the Seine in Normandy, complete with a perfect picnic lunch.

Nannick took my roommate Beth and I out for a drive one tranquil Friday afternoon. We only had a rough idea of where we were going, but the trip ended up being quite an adventure! As it turns out, Richard the Lionhearted (yep, that's the one that was away on a Crusade in the tales of Robin Hood) built several fortresses on (and into) the chalk cliffs that border the Seine in Normandy, in order to better survey against attack. Here are the ruins of Château Gaillard:


As we ate our picnic "aux bords de la Seine" (that is to say, on the bank of the Seine), we had a clear view of another castle whose name now escapes me. This castle was a 17th century update of a medieval fortress that had been dug into the white chalk cliffs. Those chalk cliffs must have been relatively easy to dig into, because there were a lot of buildings that were less building and more cliff, including a church whose bell tower protrudes a bit bizarrely from clifftop and a random two-car garage we saw carved clean out of the falaise. Nannick informed us that during Allied bombings of World War II in that region of France, the occupying German forces had hid out in these systems of caves dug from the cliffs.

This was an interesting glimpse at several layers of French history, especially that outside of Paris. My favorite story from the trip was that of one of the collegial churches we visited (and again, you'll excuse me if I forget the name of the village). During these same Allied bombings of Normandy, nearly the entire town was destroyed except for the church. There were some impressive drawings of the church rising majestically from the surrounding rubble.

Our very faithful Catholic host mother responded to my "Wow, c'est de la chance!" ("Wow, that's really lucky!") with, "C'est un miracle! Je crois aux miracles, moi." (It is a miracle! I believe in miracles.")

She has inspiring faith. Also, our little jaunt about Normandy was very pleasant!

Saint-Denis (activité culturelle 1)

My visit to Saint-Denis was part of my mini-marathon of morbidity. Saint-Denis, Père Lachaise, the Catacombs, and then Père Lachaise again. I went with my dear friend Katherine and my roommate Beth two Saturdays ago.

First, I should explain a bit of why the Saint-Denis basilica is important. Here's a list, à la Grace Stephenson:

(1) This is the site of the death of one of the patron saints of Paris. Yep, Saint Denis. Curiously, his place of execution and place of death are actually different. Saint Denis, the first Christian missionary sent into Gaul, was beheaded by heathens on Montmartre hill (which could etymologically mean "martyr's hill," but more likely means "Mars hill." And sorry for the minutia), but promptly proceeded to pick up his head and walk six miles to the present location of the church that bears his name, apparently preaching all the way. This feat places him among the many cephalophores of hagiography. I didn't have any idea such words existed until I took the class. Happy wiki-ing if you care to know what they mean.

(2) In the 12th century, Abbot Suger gave his church a makeover, inspired by the writings of Dionysius the Aeropagite (appropriately often mistaken for Saint Denis) that praised light as the conduit to contemplate the divine. The product was the first truly Gothic church. We often think of Gothic architecture as being vast, dreary, foreboding, and dark; however, in comparison to the Romanesque churches that preceded them, Gothic churches are quite luminous!

(3) This, best of all, is the burial place of basically all the kings of France since Clovis who lived during the 5th century. That is, it was the royal repository until the Revolution, when the bodies were removed from their tombs and disposed of. There are still some strange odds and ends--the mummified heart of the five-year-old mysterious Louis XVII who was crowned in exile, the supposed bones of his parents Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette. Still, the tombs and sarcophagi remain, and if you can just trick yourself into pretending that all the bodies remain, it's potentially quite a creepy place.

The Saint-Denis Basilica is a beautiful place. Want proof?

Fontainebleau

I've already expressed in my last post on Versailles how I feel about castle interiors. Just like at Versailles, there is a famous hall at Fontainebleau, called the Galerie François Premier, that we studied in my French 361 class. In one of the series of allegorical frescoes that line the gallery, there's the elephant "fleurdelisé," meaning marked by the royal French insignia of the fleur-de-lys. The elephant represents the King as wise and a steady protector of his people. Check it:


But that was all only moderately interesting. Best part? Traipsing and frolicking in the gardens. Also enormous, not of the same grandeur and immensity as Versailles. But perhaps even better for frolicking because it's wilder, less manicured. See?


I have grown to really love and appreciate what I'd like to call French "garden" culture. Even in the middle of Paris, one of the major international cities, the are parks and gardens all over! Look at a map of Paris, and you'll remark all the green, proportionally speaking. Paris is full of parks, and the parks are full of Parisians! I mean, there's Central Park in the middle of downtown New York. But as for quantity and quality of gardens, I'm going to have to say Paris wins. Obviously, many of the gardens once belonged only to the privileged--the Luxemburg gardens and the Tuileries were palace gardens.

But as my greatest acquisition in France has been to cultivate an ability to relax and take life at an easy pace. To flâner, as I've said before! And the gardens, everywhere, are so conducive to this.

Also, worth mentioning on the subject of Fontainebleau is the yummy ice cream we bought. Why has melon ice cream not made it in full force in the States? I fell for it in Germany last summer, and rediscovering it in the gardens of this old castle made the experience all the more pleasurable.

Versailles

A few weeks ago, we went as a group to Versailles. It was the third (I think?) time I had been. The castle itself has been fully demystified in my eyes. I've seen the celebrated Galerie des Glaces (that's the Hall of Mirrors) (oh! Another parenthetical: the Hall of Mirrors also figures in the Le Fanu story I wrote about in in my blog post about Père Lachaise cemetery! How great is it to be in France reading English ghost stories? Yep). I've seen the King's bedroom. Hoo-rah! It was cool the first time. And actually this time, it was pretty great: Judy and I definitely waltzed down the Grande Galerie. Aren't we awesome?! See those two little blurs a little left of center?


What I'm coming to is this: the glory of the Versailles castle lies not on the inside, but rather in the gardens. The grounds are beautiful. And enormous. I could go there a hundred times and still be charmed by the general splendor. Remark, though, that the carefully manicured lawns and trees and flower beds reflect Louis XIV's attitude toward himself, his court, and the world in general--everything strictly controlled and governed. The Sun King had the court moved to Versailles to better control the nobility, an understandable choice after the traumatic uprising of the nobility called the Fronde, during which the future king was menaced himself. The imposition of a codified etiquette? More of the same. If you've ever seen Sofia Coppola's 2006 film Marie Antoinette, which I do recommend, you'll remember this very telling exchange over the minutely detailed etiquette of the morning toilette of the young dauphine:

"This is ridiculous!"
"My dear, this is Versailles."

In any case, when we went as a group, the day was miserably rainy. I was terribly disappointed. If the day had been even just menacingly overcast, we could have played in the gardens instead of wandering through the (stuffy, I think) castle.

Luckily, an opportunity to return to Versailles presented itself within the next week! My friend Chris and his brother Matthew who had been backpacking through Europe arrived in Paris. I had the pleasure of serving as their tour guide. They were lovely traveling companions--it was actually with them that I visited Père Lachaise and the Parisian Catacombs in a single day (which adventure required a more than a bit of chocolate to warm our souls again [anyone get the Harry Potter dementor reference?]). I insisted that they see the Versailles gardens, and quite fortunately, the three days Chris and Matthew were here, the weather warmed up and the sun came out for the first time in a week and a half.

So Beth, Chris, Matthew, and I set out for a picnic at Versailles, armed with breads, grapes, pears, two kinds of chocolate, three kinds of cheese, a knife, some Kinder bars, and a very large bottle of Vittel water.

Perfect, blissful success:


Next time I go, I would like to rent bikes to see a little more. A picnic is still in order. Also, probably some overpriced tourist-trap ice cream. And some lazing around in the grass, as is always appropriate in a garden. Who's game?

Grands Boulevards (18)

Beth and I took this walk a week ago, and spent the majority of our time in the Opéra Garnier, the haunt of the famous, but fictional, phantom of the opera. It's really quite a sight to behold. We actually went to the Opéra initially (what a strange wore, 'initially,' with those three i's at the beginning!) to see if we could get cheap tickets to see a show at the still fully functional opera house. I cannot explain how thrilled I was to learn that both the ballet La Bayadère and the opera Les Contes d'Hoffman were playing while we were in Paris. The cheapest tickets to the Opera were only 8 or 10 euros, and meant free entrance into the architectural masterpiece. It was a dream come true!


That is, until we came to the ticket counter and learned that the ballet was complet--sold out!--and then that the cheapest tickets for the opera were 84 euros.

Fail.

The opera house is, however, spectacularly opulent itself and, I think, well worth the visit. Garnier, the architect, had the unlucky fortune that the opera house's reputation followed him--after the Opéra Garnier, he got little work as people assumed he only built such sumptuous structures and therefore could not afford him! Poor fellow.

The only other significant thing on this walk I can think to mention is Jeanne d'Arc, or as we good anglophones say, Joan of Arc.


The young heroine is a curious figure in French history. She represents, depending on the context: religious piety, the French extreme right party of the Front National, an independent woman ahead of her time... Well, in any case, she was canonized in 1920.

Montmartre (16)

Welcome to Montmartre, which was, and to some extent still is, the squalid home of starving artists. Ever since my first real experience in Paris in July 2007, I have been a big fan of Sacré Coeur, the basilica on Montmartre hill.

There's a long flight of stairs up to the top of the hill, which make for quite a romantic walk.

However, I'm not going to lie to you, even by omission: with my Navigo pass, I can take the adjacent funicular for free. Which I did on this walk. Don't judge me, it was particularly warm that day. It was part of my flân-ing--the leisurely strolling. Not convinced? Me neither.

In any case, the view from the top is great. Because I've been to the top of Montmartre hill, I feel even less like I have to go up into the Eiffel Tower (which I still have no desire to do. Sorry).

It was neat, on this walk, to see the homes and hang-outs off renowned artists. For example, Pierre-Auguste Renoir, who painted the famous Dejeuner des canotiers lived in Montmartre. Anyone seen Jean-Pierre Jeunet's beautiful cult film Le Fabuleux Destin d'Amélie Poulain lately? Look familiar?


We also saw a cafe called La Maison Rose, which was once frequented by Pablo Picasso and Gertrude Stein. Picasso actually painted the avant-garde authoress' portrait, now at the Met in New York between 1905 and 1906:


Unfortunately, the only picture I have that I've actually taken at Montmartre is not of great quality, but is of the basilica at night. It's quite a beautiful building, and has an interesting history. In 1870, France lost the Alsace-Lorraine region to the now-united German states. The basilica was built as a kind of penitence for that the national sins they believed the cause of that loss. The church was begun in 1875 and finished in 1914 at the start of the Grande Guerre as the French call the First World War. You will remember, of course, that the vindictive Treat of Versailles restored Alsace-Lorraine to France at the end of the war, and it was in the wake of what must have been perceived as divine acceptance of this national penitence that the basilica was dedicated in 1919.

Curious, very curious.

Overall, I enjoy Montmartre for it's sort of indie-kitschy vibe. As we wandered the hilly streets, we decided that if we had lived at that time, we would be the middle-class bourgeoisie girls longing to live in the romanticized, fantastic squalor of the quarter.

Père Lachaise Cemetery (19)

Okay, my heart starts beating a little faster now that I get to write about Père Lachaise! Don't think I'm morbid or anything, but my visits (yes, two and soon to be three) to this famous cemetery may have been made during a five day stretch during which I also visited the Saint-Denys Basilica where all the French royalty is entombed and the Parisian catacombs.

Yeah, it's a little creepy and morbid, and I'm trying to come to terms with the fact that I enjoyed it so much. There's something necromantic in me that's trying to come to light (ha! Light, death, ha!).

First, this cemetery is really beautiful. There are such charming tombs that it would be a shame not to show you at least a few. Some, I think, look more like little churches than graves. Further, the cemetery is a veritable little city within a city! The walks book calls the cemetery the "Parisian Necropolis," quite a fitting name.



As a fan of the "fantastic"--that is to say, I want to read ghost stories for a living (keep your fingers crossed for me that it works out)--I was most charmed by the tombs that look like they've been broken into... or out of!

Really creepy, huh?

Buried in Père Lachaise cemetery are all kinds of famous people like Chopin, Molière, Jim Morrison, the painter Georges Seurat, and of course Oscar Wilde, whose grave people kiss, either out of "appreciation" or as the "ladies' revenge" for his apparently sometimes misogynistic writings.

I am most excited about the cemetery because it figures prominently in two of my favorite works.

The first is a vignette from the film Paris, je t'aime, a French-American collaboration film that tells a love story for 18 of the 20 "arrondissements" (major neighborhoods) of Paris. This is one of my favorites from the film, and takes place in Père Lachaise! Check it out.

The second is the story I finished approximately four hours ago, called "The Room in the Dragon Volant" by Sheridan Le Fanu, an excellent tale I think everyone should read.

But that's just morbid me.

Seizième Arondissement Walk (13)

Yesterday I took this walk with-my-by-myself (if you don't get the allusion, go watch SNL's parody of the Lawrence Welk Show on Hulu), which was a nice opportunity to sort my thoughts and wander a bit. The 16th district in Paris is a hilly neighborhood and quite a snobbish one at that.

As a passive fan of Art Nouveau, the architectural highlights of this trip were the buildings designed by Hector Guimard, like Castel Béranger:

Oh! I love that font! See it up in the left hand corner? Yep, that's his signature.

Next I wandered up past the home of the famous Realist/Fantastic/Romantic author, Balzac (who's photo is so epic it's worth including).


But this was all a build up to my favorite part of the walk, Musée Marmottan, which houses many of Monet's most famous works, including Soleil-levant:

That piercing orange is so striking! I like, I like, I like. As I wandered through the Monets listening to Dvorák's New World Symphony, I actually discovered that while his waterlilies are nice, my favorite paintings of his are not the blue-green-purple tones, but rather his paintings in yellows, oranges, reds, and pinks. Perhaps it was my humor, or perhaps it was the rain outside, but the cool hues left me unsatisfied, while the vibrant yellows brightened my soul! (Sorry, Paris is contagiously poetic)

The other most excellent thing I saw at Musée Marmottan was one of Monet's paint pallets. So cool! It looked itself like one of Monet's paintings. It also struck me that often, Monet leaves some canvas visible--he won't paint all the way to the frame, or leaves naked patches between brush strokes, although they're barely visible.

Overall, this museum is very much worth the visit.

As I left the Museum, the sky opened up and I was caught in a torrential downpour, which, though short, left me very wet. I headed to Judy's and watched a movie while waiting for my clothes to dry. Have you seen 500 Days of Summer? I very much enjoyed it.

Sainte-Sulpice (12)

This walk took us to the (in)famous church of Sainte-Sulpice. Remember, Dan Brown's Da Vinci Code? It turns out, that's all a hoax.

Anyone surprised? The best part is the church's attitude towards the hullabaloo that attracts so many tourists. Dr. Olivier, who wrote up the guide for this walk, explains that the articles on the wall essentially say: "Go ahead and take a picture of the gnomon like all the other tourists, but please, don't go knocking around for hollow tiles including clues to the Holy Grail. (It's hidden under the Louvre pyramid anyway, remember?)" It's worth including a picture, though.

The church was actually designed by Jean-Nicolas Servadoni, during the day an architect, but by night created elaborate theatrical productions. Quite a spectacle--both the theater (or so I hear) and the church.

Very entertaining commentary. Again, I felt about this walk the same way I felt about the Marais 2 walk--not a lot to say specifically about the sights we saw. What I enjoyed about the area around Sainte-Sulpice was the feel of the neighborhood. In the immediate vicinity are specialty shops in two of my favorite things (and would one of my blog posts be complete without some kind of list? I think not):

(1) Chocolate, at the shop of Pierre Hermé. His macarons are reputedly delicious and come in such bizarre combinations of flavors (litchi-rose-raspberry is at the top of my list of macarons to try!). I think that's my goal for tomorrow.
(2) Books, at the anglophone book store The Village Voice.

Nice quarter, nice vibe. But not a lot to report in the way of spectaculars.

Lutetia Pulchra Est: the Paris of Antiquity and the Middle Ages (11)

Beth, Judy, and I took this walk on Friday the 21st of May. It was quite a sizable walk!

First, we tackled the Cluny Museum, the National Museum of the Middle Ages, which was actually remarkably interesting. If I hadn't, however, had French 361 with Dr. Hurlbut, in which we studied French history from the beginnings up to 1715, I would have probably been bored and lost. Isn't it incredible how a teacher who's passionate for their subject can inspire in his or her students a spark for things as obscure as capitals in medieval cathedrals? I aspire to that.

One of the coolest things we saw at the Cluny was the heads of the statues of the Biblical kings that were thwacked off during the French Revolution. The rowdy revolutionaries mistook the statues of the kings on the facade of Notre-Dame for the kings of France and thus beheaded them in a fit of anti-monarchal furor. The heads were thought to be lost but were found buried in a courtyard in 1977, nearly two centuries after the vandalism. Now, they're at the Cluny! Check it out:


The other really exciting thing we saw at the Cluny was the famous tapestries of the Lady and the Unicorn. Judy got some great pictures, which I have permanently borrowed:

There are, of course, all kinds of theories about what the tapestries actually represent. A few bits of trivia associated with the tapestry:
(1) In the Middle Ages, the unicorn was associated with virgin purity, as the fabled beast was believed only to approach chaste young women.
(2) There are six tapestries, five of which depict the five sense of sight, hearing, taste, touch, and smell. In the sixth tapestry, the lady removes the necklace she wears in the first five, apparently dedicating herself "à mon seul désir" (to my only desire) in a vow to transcend the pleasures of the senses. That "seul désir" could be romantic or religious--a chivalrous knight or to Christ.
(3) These tapestries were discovered by Prosper Mérimée, a 19th century writer, historian, and archeologist, who authored several fantastic tales, which genre has captured my heart over the last year, including La Vénus d'Ille, which you should probably read.

The next highlight of the walk was the Sorbonne, the prestigious French university founded during the Middle Ages. Since the student riots of 2007, the Sorbonne is no longer open to the public. Oh, how I dream of entering such a prestigious place!

From the Sorbonne, we walked to the Pantheon where the French bury their "gods" of philosophy, science, politics, literature, etc. Just a taste of whose remains reside there: Victor Hugo, Pierre and Marie Curie, Voltaire... The building was originally intended to be a Catholic church, but it was unfinished at the time of the (very anti-clerical) Revolution, and was thus converted into a repository for the great men and women of France.

Oh, also, there are some really cool pillars outside the Pantheon that are great for climbing:


Just past the pantheon there's a really beautiful church, Saint-Etienne-du-Mont. I've never seen such graceful stone. Here's a picture just for your viewing pleasure:


The last stop on this walk was the so-called Arènes de Lutèce, the Roman arenas that date from when Paris was still called by its Roman name: Lutèce or Lutetia. We decided to stage some gladiator battles:

Le Marais: Part II (8)

Since Beth and I were feeling ambitious, we did both the Marias Part I and Part II walks à la suite--that is, one after the other. The second part of the walk took us through the Pletzel, the Yiddish name for the Jewish quarter. My favorite part of this walk would have been the Musée Picasso... if only it weren't closed until the 23rd of August for renovation. Pooh, pooh. Oh well! I guess that means I just have to come back.

The other museum on this walk the Musé Cognacq-Jay, which houses a lot of paintings, furniture, and objets d'art from the 18th century. We chose the right moment to do this walk, because in class, we had just finished discussing Baroque art. Seeing works by François Boucher, Frangonard, Greuze, de Latour, and Rubens reinforced what we had just studied. I think 18th century art is terribly romantic (obviously not Romantic, let's not mix our centuries!), and although I can only tolerate about an hour and a half of it at a time, that was about how long it took us to go through the museum. The French portraits from the period are charming, and reminded me of my favorite English portraitist, Thomas Gainsborough. See any resemblance?
[Quentin de la Tour, La Marquise de Pompadour, the rather famous mistress of Louis XV]
[Thomas Gainsborough, Mrs. Hibbert]

Obviously, they're stylistically a bit different. That stylized French face, neck, and hair... But de la Tour and Gainsborough were the most celebrated portraitists of the 18th century France and England respectively.

As for the rest of our tour around the Marais, there isn't much to say or see or describe. Yet I enjoy the quarter for its cool vibe!

Le Marais (7)

I think the Marais is one of my favorite districts in Paris. It's got lots of cool things in it, including, but not limited to:

(1) The LDS Institute building
(2) Le Gay Choc (even if I can't eat the bread, I can still appreciate)
(3) Victor Hugo's house, which is part of
(4) Place des Vosges, the site of a very exciting Sunday afternoon picnic
(5) an American Apparel
(6) Hôtel de Ville, the most convenient meeting place and also the location of a very convenient post office, which means an ATM with no foreign fees
(7) the Jewish Quarter, which means good falafel
(8) Saint Paul's cathedral
(9) A genuinely cool vibe. I like.

On the 15th of May, Ryan, Judy, Beth, and I went on the prescribed Marais 1 walk and saw some cool things, including:


In this picture, you can see some of the old city wall. Cool!

Now onto the Place des Vosges!



The smiling King Henri IV created this courtyard and surrounding apartments as part of his beautification of Paris. Lots of famous people lived here in the following centuries, including Cardinal Richelieu, the loquacious letter-writer Madame de Seevigné, and Victor Hugo, who's apartments are now a museum! As I mentioned in my handy-dandy list above, it was also the site of of a tranquil Sunday afternoon picnic, since it's only about a 7 minute walk from the LDS Church building.

On our walk, since Judy is crazy-in-love with Victor Hugo, we stopped at his house, now a museum. Much cooler than I had anticipated! There was a temporary exhibit on the romantic movement of Orientalism. Hugo himself wrote a collection of poems called Les Orientales, which I've studied a few times in my BYU French career. The exhibit incorporated some beautiful Romantic paintings by artists like Delacroix with extracts from Hugo's Oriental poems. It's always a relief to find out the things you study in school actually exist in the real world.

Of Art, War, and World's Fairs: Invalides, Musée Rodin, and the Eiffel Tower (3)

Sorry for not posting in awhile! Today there's going to be quite the flood of updates... Seems to be that being in Paris has led to some serious procrastination of homework. Whoops!

On Tuesday, Judy, Beth, and I went on a walk that took us to some of the most memorable spots in Paris.


We began by this bridge, the Pont Alexandre III, named for the Russian Czar, which was built in 1900 as a symbol of the friendship between France and Russia. The year 2010, as my friend Mathilde, a French student of Russian, informed me, is designated as a celebration of Russian and French relations. We've seen a few evidences of this celebration, including the exhibit Sainte Russie at the Louvre, which was really quite interesting! I know very little about Eastern Orthodoxy and its art, but my vague background in Catholic art and architecture made for some interesting comparisons.


The next highlight of the tour was Napoleon's tomb in the Dôme church at Invalides. The complex of the Invalides (yes, that's "the invalids"), was built to house soldiers wounded in Louis XIV's (many) military campaigns. Today, Invalides is an interesting fusion of tourist site (home to the French Army Museum) and veteran's hospital--it's still retained some of it's original function! Curiously enough, the Church of the Dôme is the only church we've had to pay to enter. Napoleon's entombed remains were admittedly impressive, mostly for the size of the room:

Anybody else think he was making up for something? (Wink.)

Then came my favorite part of this walk: the Rodin Museum! I had visited the gardens last year, which are very cool, but I think my favorite part of the museum was actually Hôtel Biron, once Rodin's own home, which now houses some of his own works as well as his private collection. My dear Aunt Jean had told me to keep an eye out for this particular painting:

This is Père Tanguy, who used to mix the paints for artists like Van Gogh himself. Jean, I'm working on getting a hold of a print or a postcard of the painting! I wasn't able to find one in my brief time in the Museum gift shop, but I will go back on a more thorough hunt.

From the Musée Rodin, my friends and I headed to the Champ de Mars, the park in front of the Eiffel Tower, to picnic and nap, one more evidence for the best skill I've acquired since I've arrived in Paris: flâner, meaning to loaf around, to loiter, to take time to enjoy little joys! It was an excellent afternoon.