July 2 – Pompidou Museum, Sainte Chapelle, Ice Cream at Bertillon’s

We slept in today and after a breakfast of cereal and fruit in our room we headed out to the Pompidou Museum.  It turns out that the Pompidou is free on Sunday so the line to get in was extremely long.  The holdup was actually the security check to get in. 

  

Chloe endured the wait by chasing bubbles.  An entrepreneur in the plaza was blowing massive bubbles for the kids and collecting nice tips from grateful parents.

This is a modern art museum.  The architecture is very modern/unusual and the art is pretty forward and avant-garde.  We hit the two main floors.  Amazingly they allowed photography in the building.  Many of the artists weren’t known to us but Mary did see a number that she knew, including Picasso, Matisse, Modigliani, and Mondrian. 

A Painting by Matisse

After finishing one floor we headed to the restaurant on the top floor for lunch…fantastic views of the city.  Lunch was fantastically expensive.

  

We could see the long lines in the plaza...people were still waiting to get in.

We finished the second of the two floors we visited and then headed out to the nearby Ile de la Cite where we got into another line to see Sainte Chapelle.  This is a 13^th century chapel that has absolutely spectacular stain glass everywhere.  Well worth the time in line.  Chloe decided that when she got home she wanted to redo her room to look like Sainte Chapelle.

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More Sainte Chapelle

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Video of Sainte Chapelle

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By then it was snack time so we wandered over to a nearby Bertillon’s for some of Paris’ best ice cream. 

Then it was more wandering to try to find a monument to the Bastille...

Column at the Place de la Bastille

and then the pastel painted houses of Rue Crémieux.  The Rue Crémieux was billed as the most colorful street in Paris.  It is a block of pastel painted houses with lots of large potted plants on the sidewalks.  Admittedly it was one of the more colorful streets in Paris as most buildings in Paris are natural stone.  However, it was a lot of walking for limited sightseeing return. 

Colorful Houses on the Rue Crémieux

Then we struggled through trying to find our way back to the hotel via the Metro…then dinner at a local restaurant.