Experiencing the Culture of Paris

Tuesday 23 July

Today the big people headed out to buy a two day museum pass so that they could visit some of the best monuments Paris has to offer. The plan had been to go to the Louvre today but on checking it is not open on Tuesday so they went straight to Saint Chapelle. Mary and Alan were really surpised to see a huge gift shop in the lower chapel and ropes and barriers everywhere, When they brough me here in 2001 it was just an open space and you could sit down in the bays around the edges, Not any more, it is very touristy now. It is still impressive but even the upstairs had lost some of the wow factor, Several of the windows were covered for restoration and once again there were now ropes and barriers. Most of the windows have been conserved and cleaned and they are much clearer and brighter. The cost of the whole window restoration project is 10 million Euros and is the most expensive conservation project undertaken to date. It is one of the most beautiful chapels in the world. The sheer height of the upper chapel is amazing.

Exterior of St Chappelle .

 

Detail of one of the huge windows.

Interior of St Chapelle.

From there we went to the Concierge which is part of the whole complex. It had once been a royal palace but was used as a prison during the revolution. Marie Antoinette was held here until she was executed by guillotine. 

 Recreation of Marie Antoinette's cell.

The clock on the Concierge.

After lunch Mary spied an advert for the Vienna ballet. She had been secretly planning a visit to this as she had noticed the posters on the metro stations. They were right outside the theatre. So they followed the signs to the box office and decided against the top priced tickets at 80 euros and took the 30 euro tickets in the ampitheatre, When they arrived there we had to walk up six flights of stairs and we were in the top tier of five! It was very hot but they had a close up view of the chandelier in the dome. Just before the ballet was about to start the usher came and said something in French and all the people up there stood up and started to move.They  looked sort of puzzled but she said in broken English go down Orchestra. This meant she was telling them to go down to the stall and sit in the best seats. Mary could not run down those stairs quickly enough. They were now in the 80 euro seats with a wonderful view of the stage and it was cool down there. The dancers would have been tiny dots from where they were sitting and we would have seen right into the orchestra pit which could have ended up being a distraction for a couple of the  big people. The ballet was Don Quixote. It was very colourful with a wonderful score played by a huge orchestra that had most spacious orchestra pit they had ever seen. It was a long ballet and they didn't get out till nearly 11pm. They certainly got their money's worth.

In the afternoon they had decided to walk to the Orsay from a nearby metro. This is Mary's favourite museum in Paris.

The history of the museum, of its building is quite unusual. In the centre of Paris on the banks of the Seine, opposite the Tuileries Gardens, the museum was installed in the former Orsay railway station, built for the Universal Exhibition of 1900. So the building itself could be seen as the first "work of art" in the Musee d'Orsay, which displays collections of art from the period 1848 to 1914.

No sooner had they got out from underground when the rain started and there was an enormous thunderstorm. They took cover in a bus shelter with many other tourists but they  had got soaked getting there. The gutters were rapidly filling with running water and it was too tempting for one motorist. He just had to drive up hard against the curb and soak everyone all a bit more.

They made it down to the Orsay when the rain eased off but it took all of the visit to actually dry out. That was apart from their shoes which were never going to dry while they were wearing them.

You could not take photos in the Orsay but this was a view out of one of the windows.

After a rest back at the hotel to get dry clothes, they headed out for a meal and the ballet.