Final Paris Scenes

Our last week in Paris the Tuileries were graced with both the Cauldon, from the 2024 Olympics, and a small traveling amusement park. Vicki wanted to see the Cauldron and so we took in the rest, mostly out of curiosity. Not Paris' best, but then we've seen more than our share of the best.

Boating on the Seine

The ferris wheel and the Cauldron

Aloft

And a Louvre bit

Next day, in the temporary amusement park

Us, with the Cauldron resting

On the midway

Le Maison de Mickey: Disney was of French ancestry...

Bump 'em cars

Kiddie bump 'em cars

And a few of the wilder rides...

Crazy people up there, upside down, waiting for the other
coach to load... 

Paris Fete De La Musique

Something city-wide is going on in Paris seemingly every weekend. June 21st, it was the annual Fete de la Musique, wherein groups, professional, amateur, or solo, do their musical stuff in a variety of venues...sometimes bars, clubs or cafes, sometime in public places like theaters or halls, sometimes just out in the street. It goes on until 2AM or so, all over the city. We thought we'd take in a few just in our immediate neighborhood in the 6th. Luxembourg Garden closes at dusk, so we started at St. Sulpice...

A huge affair already going on in the forecourt

I lack th tongue to adequately describe the music, except that it was
deafeningly loud, with a throbbing beat; and everyone was drinking

Inside was a different matter

We were hoping for Gregorian Chant, but it was only a Christian
hootenanny of the sort the late great Tom Lehrer would have approved;
in the Mary Hall, no less

Street scene; probably a musician in there somewhere

Next we moved to the Marche St. Germain, where, to my delight...

A great symphonic band was performing

And next, a bar, where a small group was performing oldies

And then the Odeon

More contemporary popular "music"

Another street scene...everyone was out on this warm melodious night

Even Danton seemed to be enjoying it

Mamlouks At The Louvre

On June 20th we did the Louvre's special exhibition Mamlouks 1250-1517. The Mamlouks, as every school-person knows, were a slave/warrior class within Islam, originating in the steppes of central and eastern Asia, who overthrew their masters as well as the remaining European crusaders and established their own sultanate in the 12th and 13th centuries. That sultanate encompassed most of the eastern Mediterranean and some of north Africa and was succeeded by the Ottoman Turks. The exhibition highlights their art, arms, literature, science, and more, and culminates in the the Baptistere de St. Louis, of Mamlouk origin, which has been a French royal possession since the 16th century or so and was used in the baptism of assorted royals. About a third of the contents of the exhibition came from the Louvre itself, the rest from a variety of sources.

Click to enlarge

Helpful map #105,472

The Mamlouks were mostly horse lords; one of their saddles

Helpful chronology #195

Photo of a Mamlouk mosque

Many, many highly-worked basins of one sort or another

Muslim glass from this era among our favorites

Pen and ink set

Among the assorted books, scrolls...poetry, holy scripture, practical 
and scientific treatises...

Armor...

And arms

More books

More glass

Mamlouk astrolabe

Trade routes of the era

Beautiful tapestry

Venetian painting of a Mamlouk scene

Mamlouk telephone booths

Mamlouk carpet

And now, the piece de resistance...

In a hall and presentation that far surpass the Louvre's royal jewels

The background depicts the scenes depicted on the Baptistere