The View From Pont Neuf

Unless you're in a hurry and can stand and do the stairs, the thing to do in a place like Paris is to ride the bus, not the Metro. The bus system is even more extensive than the Metro, runs quite regularly enough, and can be monitored easily on your phone. On the bus you get to sit, look around, discover things en route that you want to go back to, and get a better sense of the lay of the land, so to speak. So we mostly ride the bus. Our Nuit Europeene de musees timed-tickets to the Pinault Collection at the Bourse de Commerce were for 9:30PM, so we left a bit early, rode the bus to Pont Neuf and got off there to enjoy the sights and the approaching sunset. The European Night of the Museums is a UNESCO/EU-wide annual event, a Saturday night across the continent when most museums open their doors with free admission. Very popular.

From the Pont Neuf

Among the sights is the giant statue of Japanese
artist Yayoi Kusama adorning one of the Louis
Vuitton buildings (the Samaritaine department store
is on the left)

Largest handbag, appropriately, in the entire world of
sculpture

The statue and splotches celebrate Kusami's continued collaboration
with Louis Vuitton; one imagines Japan is one of their big markets;
there's an even more striking installation on their building on the Champs
Elysees, which we'll get to...

Crossing the Rue de Rivoli

The Shower Curtain, as Parisians call it, the contemporary facade on

one of the Samaritaine buildings

On Rue Berger, approaching the Bourse de Commerce;
better exterior pix in the next post

Along the way, a possible Dan Bown site

Returning to Pont Neuf after seeing the Pinault
Collection

Walking by St. Sulpice on our way home