February 2 Saturday
Today we planned to explore the Marais. We had our guidebook, which recommended a Marais walking tour, but some of the sights on the route didn’t seem too compelling. We walked along through the narrow streets toward the east, which is where some of the more commercial areas are. The Rue Vieille du Temple seems to be a central street. The Marais neighborhood was home to wealthy Parisians who build small palaces. As you walk around, you can see them. Even though they are “attached” to their neighbors, these palaces have grand entrances, and if you can look through the gate a nice courtyard. These palaces are no longer homes, but contain museums or have other uses. Good examples include the Librairie des Archives, the Musee de la Chasse and de la Nature, and the Musee Carnavalet. The Museum of Jewish Art and History, just a few steps from our apartment, is another excellent example. We were looking for a place to have lunch/brunch and didn’t see any candidates that looked appealing. Continuing on to the Rue de Rosiers, we hit the jackpot: Finkelstein’s Deli. Inside was crowded, but a very nice lady working there guided us to a table in the back and offered us a taste of beef paste, then we asked about tuna, and she gave us a taste of that. We then enjoyed tuna salad on poppyseed bagels — delicious! This was a great find and really hit the spot!
We continued on our walk, finding a narrow alleyway that wasn’t very interesting, then continued on to the beautiful Place des Vosges. Then we came upon the restaurant where we had our dinner last night (took a photo, then another photo of a jewish man with a very impressive hat!), then arrived at the Picasso National Museum. This museum (first floor closed to set up a new exhibit of Picasso and Calder) has two floors of art for the permanent collection. We had been here before prior to its extensive (and controversial) renovation. This visit was a disappointment. The collection of Picasso paintings is missing many from his early days (where are the harlequins?) and none from his blue period. Then on the second floor, the art is mostly paintings done by others from Picasso’s personal collection. We saw a Renoir that we liked, though. Our memories from the previous visit were very positive, while this visit seemed very disappointing. Is this really the best that the Picasso Museum can do? Well, we did like what we saw; we just needed to see more.
From here we continued to follow the recommended walking tour. We strolled through the Marche des Enfants Rouge (named after the uniform for an orphanage), which has many food stalls and places to eat. Then we saw a nice park called the Square du Temple and then we walked down the Avenue Beauberg to the Pompidou Centre. Our wait to enter here was short due to our museum passes. The regular line was not too long, though (although when we left it was quite long for some reason). We obtained a museum map and oriented ourselves. The floors 4 and 5 contain the permanent collection, so we rode the “outside” escalators (in a tube) to 5 as we were told (“niveau cinq”). The beginning of the collection was quite nice — Post Impressionist with many Matisses. We really enjoyed this, and there was a lot to see. I liked particularly the Sonia and Robert DeLauney paintings. There were Picassos, Klees, and a really lovely Raoul Dufy! Our expectations were definitely exceeded! As we made our way toward the end of floor 5 and then even more so on 4, the art became more modern and unfortunately less interesting to us. We finished our visit with a stop in the gift shop to buy a few postcards.
Outside the museum, the crowd was quite lively. Today, since it was Saturday, we anticipated protests from the “yellow vests,” but we saw no evidence of that here (needless to say we were avoiding the Champs Elysees area). We spotted a cute shop and suddenly hit another jackpot — a key chain with cherries, an Eiffel Tower and even a Hello Kitty — this will make Rob’s sister Eve extremely happy! Then we walked to the side of the museum to look at the Stravinksy fountain — very colorful, but not in operation in January. Seeing all of the people strolling around encouraged us to follow the pedestrian streets in this area, and we came upon a massive, modern shopping center at Les Halles. When we had been here before, the area featured an old Les Halles, which may have even been abandoned. Well, obviously this has been demolished to make way for this modern mall. The architecture is not entirely to our liking, but it was nice to see this modern amenity that the people are obviously enjoying. We kept walking and circled back to the Pompidou Centre and then made our way back to our apartment. The weather had stayed dry for us today.
For dinner tonight, we walk to a restaurant near the bar Quetzal (where we stopped for a drink this evening) called Les Mauvais Garçons (“The Bad Boys”). Barry had recommended this place as a small but charming place with good food. He was right. For a starter Roy had Salade Lyonaisse (with lots of lardons and a poached eggs), and Rob had a salad accompanied by a hunk of grilled cheese. For mains, Rob had chicken (leg and thigh) that he really enjoyed. Roy ordered the Daurade (fish), which turned out to be a whole fish. Not the easiest thing to eat, but Roy was a trooper and picked the bones.
We continued on our walk, finding a narrow alleyway that wasn’t very interesting, then continued on to the beautiful Place des Vosges. Then we came upon the restaurant where we had our dinner last night (took a photo, then another photo of a jewish man with a very impressive hat!), then arrived at the Picasso National Museum. This museum (first floor closed to set up a new exhibit of Picasso and Calder) has two floors of art for the permanent collection. We had been here before prior to its extensive (and controversial) renovation. This visit was a disappointment. The collection of Picasso paintings is missing many from his early days (where are the harlequins?) and none from his blue period. Then on the second floor, the art is mostly paintings done by others from Picasso’s personal collection. We saw a Renoir that we liked, though. Our memories from the previous visit were very positive, while this visit seemed very disappointing. Is this really the best that the Picasso Museum can do? Well, we did like what we saw; we just needed to see more.
From here we continued to follow the recommended walking tour. We strolled through the Marche des Enfants Rouge (named after the uniform for an orphanage), which has many food stalls and places to eat. Then we saw a nice park called the Square du Temple and then we walked down the Avenue Beauberg to the Pompidou Centre. Our wait to enter here was short due to our museum passes. The regular line was not too long, though (although when we left it was quite long for some reason). We obtained a museum map and oriented ourselves. The floors 4 and 5 contain the permanent collection, so we rode the “outside” escalators (in a tube) to 5 as we were told (“niveau cinq”). The beginning of the collection was quite nice — Post Impressionist with many Matisses. We really enjoyed this, and there was a lot to see. I liked particularly the Sonia and Robert DeLauney paintings. There were Picassos, Klees, and a really lovely Raoul Dufy! Our expectations were definitely exceeded! As we made our way toward the end of floor 5 and then even more so on 4, the art became more modern and unfortunately less interesting to us. We finished our visit with a stop in the gift shop to buy a few postcards.
Outside the museum, the crowd was quite lively. Today, since it was Saturday, we anticipated protests from the “yellow vests,” but we saw no evidence of that here (needless to say we were avoiding the Champs Elysees area). We spotted a cute shop and suddenly hit another jackpot — a key chain with cherries, an Eiffel Tower and even a Hello Kitty — this will make Rob’s sister Eve extremely happy! Then we walked to the side of the museum to look at the Stravinksy fountain — very colorful, but not in operation in January. Seeing all of the people strolling around encouraged us to follow the pedestrian streets in this area, and we came upon a massive, modern shopping center at Les Halles. When we had been here before, the area featured an old Les Halles, which may have even been abandoned. Well, obviously this has been demolished to make way for this modern mall. The architecture is not entirely to our liking, but it was nice to see this modern amenity that the people are obviously enjoying. We kept walking and circled back to the Pompidou Centre and then made our way back to our apartment. The weather had stayed dry for us today.
For dinner tonight, we walk to a restaurant near the bar Quetzal (where we stopped for a drink this evening) called Les Mauvais Garçons (“The Bad Boys”). Barry had recommended this place as a small but charming place with good food. He was right. For a starter Roy had Salade Lyonaisse (with lots of lardons and a poached eggs), and Rob had a salad accompanied by a hunk of grilled cheese. For mains, Rob had chicken (leg and thigh) that he really enjoyed. Roy ordered the Daurade (fish), which turned out to be a whole fish. Not the easiest thing to eat, but Roy was a trooper and picked the bones.
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