Amsterdam!

we hopped a high speed train and came to Amsterdam for two nights. We didn't bring our computer so I can't post pictures until we return to Paris on Wednesday. But trust us, it is a beautiful city.
Plus, Ned found this fantastic apartment/b&b in the oud zuid (old south) section of town,a residential neighborhood on Vondelpark.
Here's the website to the place (the correct one!)
Www.princehenry.nl

Outdoor food market, Jardin du Luxembourg and tourist haven

Sunday morning, the perfect time to get up and go out to the organic food market on the Boulevard Raspail and do a little shopping for our petit dejeuner.  Too bad we were slow out the door and kind of already full from the blini and lox we bought at the Monoprix.  The vendors were staring to pack it up soon after we arrived but there was still time to look.  

A nice setting on the boulevard.

Quite a nice bounty of fruit and always a little white asparagus to be found.

Um, excuse me, can you tell me a little more about your rutabaga? Was it grown humanely? 

Pre-sliced artisanal bread wrapped in plastic.  This kind of thing can really set Ned off on a diatribe. "What's the point? They don't know how to slice bread!?!"

"Hmmm, what else won't I buy today?"

The chicken and the egg. It's all here...

Not so strict with the food market definition, clothing vendors managed to slip in.  Melissa inspects the scarfs.

The homemade pasta was moving fast. This vendor had all kinds of other goodies too.

 After reaching the end of the Raspail market, we were just a few blocks away from the Jardin du Luxembourg.  We strolled over to this beautiful city park, along with half the city.  It was an incredible,  warm day.  Almost too warm for les touristes.

This guy has been at the park a very, very, very long time-- like since 1881.

The lovely lake in the center with mini sailboats crisscrossing.

The Palais du Luxembourg.  We really don't now what's in this building.  But it was surrounded by guards.
 

Somehow, we managed to get ourselves to the Louvre, well the outside of the Louvre.  We were too museum-d out to take this monster on.  But the exterior and the Jardin des Tuileries were lovely.

Quel mignon!

A demain, mes amis.  We are taking a trip out of town for two nights and should be able to update our blog from the B&B.  Can you guess where we're headed (via high speed train)??

Musée des Arts et Métiers

The Musée des Arts et Métiers is the oldest science and technology museum in Europe.  Founded in the late 1700 to collect machines, tools and models.  It's been housed since it was established in a medieval church and priory in the Marais.  A beautiful building and our favorite museum in Paris.  

Ned attempting to operate a machine entirely above his pay grade.

An early, early navigational tool.  Sorry, we forgot exactly when it was made or where but it was among the dozens of ancient tools in the museum which illustrate the expanse of scientific history.

Some kind of robot floor mopper or something, it looks cool but has a really mundane job.

Melissa is exploring the lunar surface along with her buddy, the Robot Lama (Lavochkin Alcatel Model Autonomous,) who is probably better equipped for the task.

An 18th Century glass mold for an ornate square bottle:

Ever wondered what one of those pesky space shuttle heat tiles looked like? Well...voila!

Melis goes up the stairs and underneath an unsuccessful attempt at a flying machine which was modeled after the flight of a bat.  It was quite an impressive failure though.

Time for lunch in the museum courtyard called a toutes vapeurs.  We have been here before and the menu was just as incomprehensible as before with inventive dishes and pseudo scientific descriptions (in French).

After lunch, it was off to the engine room with tons of cross sectioned motors.  It was hard for Ned to leave this one.

All those kilotons of machinery and heavy stuff was transported to their respective spots via a metal track system that was built into the wood floors.

Here's a small dolly left on the track to show you how it was done.

In the 19th Century,  people were into all kinds of mechanical robot toys and they even made mechanical paintings which had clockworks behind them to move the various painted elements on the front.  Here's a video which illustrates how it works:

A favorite section devoted to photography and the moving image:

Here's a model of Telstar satellite from 1962. A great addition to the mod looking television sets and cameras, many of which date back to the 1930's!  It was clearly the inspiration for R2D2.

Here are some earlier flying machines hung from the ceiling of the Saint Martin-des-Champs abbey, the original structure devoted to the museum from its inception.

Whoa, look out below! Pretty scary stuff to stare down the 30 meters or so to the ground through the glass floor or over the railing.  There were various ancient automobiles parked on the levels alongside aeroplanes within the abbey section of the museum.

Back on the street, slowly making our way home and we make another great discovery.
Panaché, like a French shandy, has become a favorite.  So light and refreshing, a far as alcohol goes, it feels totally innocuous but is probably still illegal to consume in public.

Et fin, a couple of sweets.  One is a creme de cassis floral tart, very light and perfume-y.  The eclair, had a passionfruit creme and chocolate on top.  Bonsoir mes amis.  

Surprise day.

So today was supposed to be our big visit to the Musée des Arts et Métiers in the Marais.  This was going to be a very expected visit to a museum we have enjoyed very much in the past and could anticipate what we would see today.  Not so.  First of all, Ned needed to go to Muji to get a striped long sleeve shirt, just because.  Next, he needed to visit one of his favorite clothing stores called Kulte, to see what was available as well.  Melissa kindly agreed to humor him until lunch when we stumbled onto Le Marche des Enfants Rouge.  The oldest covered market in Paris.  Vendors sell prepared foods, in a very intense setting, an exotic and ancient food court.  We picked a Moroccan stand that had a line and ordered some delish food and did some serious people watching.  

 Satisfied, we walked out the side exit onto the Rue Bretagne that leads directly to the Musee.  But instead, we stepped into a vast universe of Parisian flea market stalls that appeared to have no end.  An annual flea market had set up over maybe 40 blocks.  Every alleyway, corner, and park was filled with antiques, bric a brac and french junk.  We were in heaven.  Each time we though we reached the end, it jogged to the left or right and continued on.  And there were great deals!
We never made it the Musee today.

 Here's some of our treasures:                                            

A Demain!

Stamp Market...Charade it was not.

 We started our day heading down the Avenue Gabriel near the Champs-Élysées toward the famed stamp market where we discover the big secret to the prized letter in the 1963 film Charade.  On a Friday morning however, it had none of the electricity felt in that film.  Avenue Gabriel is vast yet sparse with parks on both sides and an intense security presence for government buildings including a huge US Embassy.  We walked large stretches without seeing anyone, beyond black clad and heavily armed police.

We liked the sign because of it's mid century modernist appeal and a visual footnote to our Musée du Quai-Branly visit.

Here's some repair being done on a gate to some unknown government property, or at least nothing we could discern. Note the FR for République française and faces on either side- maybe it need extra gilding or something.

The stamp market itself was pretty quiet with vendors conversing among themselves and eyeballing us as we browsed.  We didn't linger long at any stand for fear of actually buying something neither one of us know a single thing about.  A lot of the stamps were really beautiful and Ned was particularly fascinated by a grouping of voiture de pompiers (firetruck) stamps from nations like North Korea and Somalia.

Melissa toying with the idea of starting a new hobby, on second thought, better to leave it to the experts.  The experts being retirement age men, exclusively.  Around the corner was a similar scene of coin vendors with smaller spaces or just suitcases trading information with little interest from the passerby.

Back to the Marais for lunch.  We had a date to visit the Musée Carnavalet, a museum devoted to the history of Paris in that neighborhood but we had to stop at the Rue des Rosiers first.  

Melissa with a bounty of falafel.

Not so pretty but really yummy.

Then we took a helicopter ride over the neighborhood...just kidding.  You guessed it, another diorama!  In fact one of many at the Musée Carnavalet...

Time to hit the streets again to retread our steps, several times, in fact. Until we hopped on a bus to head home.

Hotel de Ville with a neo Renaissance façade and an interior refurbished in the late 19th century, after the original building from the 16th century was destroyed in a fire.  All seen from the bus window, tourism American style :).

Almost home, ahhhhh.