Rive Gauche/Rive Droite: Random Views

Our plan for the 8th--our 51st wedding anniversary, BTW--was to wander around on the left side for a bit, St. Germain de Pres and thereabouts, and then to cross back and on to Les Halles and the kid's playground there, the Adventure Land in the Parc Nelson Mandela. We like just wandering around, but P needs some activity and the prospect of being with other kids. It was a partial success...the wandering around bit, where you can hardly go wrong...

In St. Germain de Pres church, oldest of Paris' churches

X=0, Y=0, as Cartesian coordinates go

Today's wedding pix pix

In a wonderful old-timey spice shoppe, with a knowledgeable keeper: alas, the
French do not do red pepper flakes (which I need for the Thai cucumber salad)

Florally-topped cafe and ghost-signed building

Wordy cafe: too many words, as Salieri might have said

Another  great Guimard

Very fresh ghost-sign; or not

P outside the great church of St. Severin

Downspouts at St. Severin

P said take a picture of this...love her sense of humor

Now, on the right side: "Paris is the most beautiful in the rain"; Penelope does
NOT agree

Faux windows, seriously

So we circumnavigated Les Halles, looking for an entrance
to the kid's Adventure Land at the Parc Nelson Mandela

The whole grounds had been taken over by the FIFA Fans extravaganza...
the women's World Cup is going on right here in France; so we decided to
have a look instead at St. Eustache...this is SO Paris

But first, a little sculpture

St Eustache is a very young Gothic, 16th century,  but has
 always intrigued me by its great height

Foiled again! The Rubens Emmaus painting I wanted to see
is in restoration! 

Parc Villette

Paris goes by many names, another of which might be "City of Parks." We visited the giant park at La Villette in 2014, and remarked at the time that it would be a great place to take an older Penelope. In addition to the variety of cultural and educational institutions there, the Parc also has several museums, including the Cite des Sciences et Industrie, the largest such in Europe. And within it is a Cite des Enfants, one of the special attractions for P. We spent most of the day there, the 5th, the last half of which was at a couple of the numerous playgrounds.

Thank you, President Mitterrand, France's longest-serving
elected chief of state, first Lefty of the 5th Republic; vive le
Socialism!

Back side of the Cite

The Geode, still the world's largest Imax, I guess

Parc Villette has a number of water features, not least of which is the Canal St. Martin

Paris was one of the popular departure points for the Camino,
and The Way evidently passes right through the Parc

P at the end of the longest and highest slide I've seen

Thus; she says she's been on a much larger one, in New
Zealand; figures

Zip-lining girl

Jardin Des Plantes; Aka Garden of Plants

The week of June 3rd revolved mostly around Penelope and the cool and wet weather. Her Mom was in London, enjoying a week off. We got out a bit, in between rain drops and high winds, but even our outings were not always successful. On the 4th we walked over to the Jardin des Plantes to see the flowers and to visit the museum, which has a children's area.

Another big park, with zoo and several museums

All presided over by Lamarck, "founder of the doctrine of
evolution" (Darwin filled in the details)

Le Petamaine, founder of the doctrine that the egg came
before the chicken

Alas, on closer examination, we discovered that all the museums in the park,
including the sought-after kiddie areas, were closed; contrary to the theory that
only the Louvre is closed on Tuesdays

So we spent a fair amount of time smelling the roses

And looking at some of the outdoor geology exhibits

Etc.

Later we walked around a bit, and had lunch at a Chinese trattoria

Paris mosque

Still more flowers

And historical fauna

And then spent the rest of the afternoon at the neighborhood playground

Adventurous and adept; on a playmate's dad's 2 wheeler

Pompidou, 2019

We had Penelope for the afternoon Sunday, June 2, and thought she'd enjoy the Pompidou. Having suffered through two days of the Louvre with her parents, she was not so sure. But the Pomp has some fun things, including a children's play area, and she was further induced by a children's guide book Vicki had bought for her a few years back, and which she produced for the occasion. We had been to the Pompidou on several occasions in the past (http://roadeveron.blogspot.com/2014/08/centre-pompidou-1.html, http://roadeveron.blogspot.com/2014/08/pompidou-2.html,
https://roadeveron.blogspot.com/2009/08/pompidiou-i.html), and although I sometimes disparage the building, I generally find the collection and special exhibits interesting, even stimulating. This day I was trying to view things through a younger lens.

Since the day was to be a scorcher, we headed to the roof first thing for the views:
the first, a sad one, the roof-less Notre Dame Cathedral, greatly damaged, as
everyone knows, but saved, and now to be repaired and restored

Paris has so many landmarks, they get in the way of each other...Les Halles, the
church of St. Eustache, La Defense in the distance, and much more in between

Louvre, Eiffel Tower, the Petit and Grand Palais...

Montmartre

The Pompidou has a large collection of Roualt's paintings,
(this one Le Clown Blesse, 1932), which Vicki likes
because of his Portrait of a Boy, which, she says, reminded
her of me, when we both were young

Said painting, off the web, was in storage in 2009, again
in 2014, and, I assume, again in 2019; maybe next time

Picasso's Pink Period coincided with a world-wide glut of pink pigment

One of his lesser known masterpieces, La Pisseuse (1965),
done when he was well into his Dirty Old Man Period

I have never quite gotten in to Miro; but after enough Miro, Braque, Modigliani,
Picasso, et al., we were later inspired to watch Midnight in Paris again; a
favorite

Dado's Le Grande Ferme, which did appeal

P with her Pompidou book, finding most of the paintings and
other items

Chopin's Waterloo, by Arman; when I asked P whether she knew what a "Waterloo"
was, she said it was a toilet with running water...a really well-traveled American child

A stone's throw from the Pompidou is the gorgeous Syndicat
de L'Epicerie Francaise building: "Tous pour Un" and "Un pour
Tous"; such a contrast!