Louvre Loonies

October 2nd was our second visit to the Louvre on this campaign, covering far more ground than the previous visit. But five hours in the great museum takes its toll, and some of us begin to feel a bit giddy.

Largest Della Robbia we've yet seen: a Lift-off 
(you can see J's feet disappearing into the clouds 
at the top)

Why there are so many Della Robbias: the entire clan was doing
them

Batter up! Not the only thing that was up

Apollo has downloaded the Louvre map to his phone in order
to find his gallery (Gallery of Apollo)

Extreme Medici nose

"Don't make my butt too big" #1,632

Extreme Christian piercing

Saintly fly-by

Holy tea towel

Same model as you know who

Jesus calculating how much water it will take to convert enough
wine for a Veronese Cana wedding canvas...let's see, 4 cups per
wineskin, 2 cups per person...water it down a bit...

Today's mob to see Mr. Smokey's Special Lady Friend

Cat doing what cats do

Why do circumcisions always draw such a crowd?

"Such a big knife?"

Louvre graffiti

Still has her 8th grade paper on A Farewell to Arms

Back-scratcher handle broke off

Tennis racket handle broke off

Did not break off

Marche D'Aligre And Rue De Nice

On another day off, we visited the Marche d'Aligre, over near our old neighborhood in the 11th, and even stopped by to see our old haunts.

Marche d'Algre is really three or four markets in one: a street of

fruits and veggies, a square with clothes, brocante, and books, and 

a covered market of meat and seafood and specialty items; the

neighborhood abounds in other food stores, bakeries, cafes, and so on

Helpful map of the Marche Beauvau, the covered
market

Pheasant

Lotte, aka monkfish, aka poor man's lobster; the fish I use in
bouillabaisse; texture and taste close to lobster; unusual in the
USA

More giant shrimp

Specialty beer shop; no Westvleteren; not that it was expected

Specialty tripe shop

Have to like this neighborhood

Wood-working, refinishing shop

Belle Epoque fixer-upper

Rue Charonne "open book" I thought of as a landmark

Our old building on Rue de Nice; nothing special, but home for
three months

Entry, we think

Nothing in the entire neighborhood seems to have changed at all
in the seven years since we lived there

Walking In The 2nd And 8th

It was to be a day without a major destination, just a walk to see the Gallery Vivienne and environs and then to the Saint-Lazaire area to reconnoiter Brasserie Mollard. But anywhere in Paris will yield interesting sights along the way.

Shoe coloring shop

Galerie Vivienne; another of the 2nd's many passages

At a cafe; we think he might have been an extra just off the set
of Emily in Paris

Louis XVIII

Interior of Vivienne

In a shop that alters photos into painted portraits... a business 

model I could have gotten into

Another wing of Vivienne

Advert by mosaicist

Richileu national library being renovated

Another art nouveau resto to add to our list

Duck restaurant; seriously

Passage Choiseul

Moroccan resto

Thanks to Haussmann's mid-19th century redesign
of Paris, there are many buildings that start or end in
apexes; this is the first church we've seen, Saint-
Augustin's parish church in the 8th; designed by
Haussmann himself, a Protestant, to fit...

Not cruciform (!!)

We did make it to Mollard and will post pix in a subsequent episode