25. Musée national du Moyen Age - Thermes et hotel de Cluny

The Musée national du Moyen Age - Thermes et hotel de Cluny (the National Museum of the Middle Ages incorporating the Gallo-Roman Baths and the residence of the Abbots of Cluny) is on the Left Bank of the Seine adjacent to the Sorbonne.

The original building was begun in 1334 by the Abbot of Cluny.  It was rebuilt in 1510 by succeeding abbots.  In 1843 it was made into a public museum to preserve its Gothic elements and its Renaissance collections.

Mary Tudor, sister of Henry VIII of England lived here for some time after the death of her husband Louis XII of France.  Apparently Louis' successor, Francis wanted to keep an eye on her in case she was pregnant.  I'd hate to think about what may have happened to her if she had been.

A village well from the middle ages, complete with gargoyle.

The first room in the museum is for temporary exhibitions and the current exhibition was stunning.  It was called Larmes d'Albatre (Tears of Alabaster) - Les Pleurants du Tombeau de Jean Sans Peur, Duc de Bourgogne (The Mourners of the Tomb of John the Fearless, Duke of Burgundy).

Let's begin with the genealogy of the Dukes of Burgundy of the House of Valois - because I just love the names.

Philip the Bold

Died 1404

John the Fearless

Died 1419

Philip the Good

Died 1467

Charles the Timid

Died 1477

I'm guessing they got their name after they died seeing that Philip the Good lasted the longest and the House of Valois lost the dukedom under Charles the Timid.

But back to the story.  John the Fearless, Duke of Burgundy from 1404 until 1419, was a fervent admirer of the tomb built by his father, Philip the Bold just outside the city of Dijon.  It was the work of sculptors Jean de Marville and Claus Sluter but was not a new concept, it followed a popular design from the 13th century.  It is where the lower section of the tomb, on which lies the recumbent effigy of the prince, is made up of a series of mourning figures sculpted in low relief. These are named the "mourners".

In 1435, Philip the Good commissioned a replica of the tomb of Philip the Bold, for his late father John the Fearless.  The sculptors were a Spaniard, Jean de la Huerta  and Antoine Le Moiturier who carved for 25 years to produce 40 separate mourners, each with an individual expression, a variety of stances, and fine drapery.

Here is the tomb of John the Fearless.  The group of mourners appear to be moving in and out of the cloisters.

The group comprises a water sprinkler, two altar boys, one cross-bearer acolyte, a deacon and a bishop preceding three cantors and two Cartusians.  Following is the Household of the Duke.  The forty alabaster mourners are on loan from the Musée des Beaux-Arts de Dijon and are presented without the lower sections of the tomb.

Masterpieces of 15th century sculpture.

L'hotel de Cluny is partially constructed on the remains of the Gallo-Roman baths dating from the 3rd century.  Following painstaking restoration work, a short corridor was opened up between l'hotel de Cluny and the baths to allow seamless movement between the two buildings.

This huge space which was the baths, houses exhibitions in red cases.  

Nothing is left of the baths except the external walls.  No decoration remains intact although they have pieces of columns and fragments of tiling found in the rubble during restoration dating back to 37 AD.

This is the oldest artefact in France.  The Pillar of the Boatmen dedicated to Jupiter and Tiberius from 37AD.

Moving back into l'hotel de Cluny there was room after room of artefacts, ivories, ancient manuscripts and tapestries.   But the Middle Ages and all its religious iconography does my head in.  I'd had enough.  Apart from this bronze hunting bird in front of fabulous tapestries.

The ceiling of the abbot's chapel (statues of the abbot's family went in those six niches).

A great fireplace in the cooking/eating hall of the abbot's private chambers.

And a table centrepiece of the day - not a good look, JC!

Dear me ..... I need a break.  

Outside into the fresh air.

And a walk passed the beautiful Sorbonne.

And on to the little Hotel Cluny-Sorbonne, our home for 5 days in 1998 - our honeymoon.  Other than the wonky sun-shade it looked pretty good inside.  The elevator is so small that it would take only our two suitcases - we had to walk up the stairs!

24. Il pleut! Il neige! Where is Spring?

Il pleut!  It rains.  Il neige!  It snows.  And it is cold.  It is currently raining and 12 degrees.  Where is Spring?

The view from our window today.

Even Paul is cold and sick of having wet feet.

Today is the 19th of May.  Only two weeks of Spring remain.  The 1st of June marks the beginning of Summer in Europe.  

The forecast for Paris for the next 5 days looks like this:

•  Sunday - Low 10. High 16. Rain
•  Monday - Low 12. High 12. Rain
•  Tuesday - Low 11. High 14.
•  Wednesday - Low 8. High 16.  A bit of sun.
•  Thursday - Low 11. High 18. 

Giro d'Italia
19 May 2013

Giro d'Italia organisers have been forced to drop a stage finish at the summit of the famous Col du Galiber due to continuing bad weather. Poor weather has hampered the Giro throughout, with today's mountain stage from Cervere to Bardonecchia being diverted because snow was falling at the finish and the riders were battling heaving rain and fog.











March 2013 has been unusually cold and snowy throughout the Northern Hemisphere
25 March 2013

The past several winter seasons have been unusually cold and snowy across much of Europe into North Africa.  A mid March freeze killed vegetables and citrus in Morocco and also in southern Spain this past week.  Last Thursday night and Friday, a record late winter snowstorm accompanied by near hurricane-force winds trapped thousands of motorists on the busy M1 Highway between Budapest, Hungary and Vienna, Austria.  Snowdrifts piled up to 3 meters (10 feet) as the violent gusts blocked off major roads across Hungary and other snowbound parts of Eastern Europe, including Slovakia.  

Nearly 6,000 cars were stranded on the roads and some 18 trains were stuck Friday between stations in deep snowdrifts.  At least 8,000 people took refuge during the blizzard in heated buildings set up by emergency personnel to take in stranded traveler.  Record cold temperatures for so late in the season occurred across much of Europe late last week.  Snow fell in London, Paris and northern Italy at Florence.  One citrus growing region in southern Spain reported an all-time mid March low temperature of 23F degrees last Friday morning. It was 27F degrees at another station in North Africa.  Even northern India saw snow this week. 

For much of Europe, thanks to unusually chilly late winter/early spring temperatures, March 2013 will go into the record books as the snowiest such period in at least four centuries, since the early 1600s.  

Where Is Spring And Why Is It Still So Cold?

It's because the climate is messed up and this cold spring is just another extreme weather event for Europe and North America.
The year 2012 marked a record for loss of Arctic sea ice, according to The Ecologist website: "The Arctic ice loss adds heat to the ocean and atmosphere which shifts the position of the jet stream, the high-altitude river of air that steers storm systems and governs most weather in the Northern Hemisphere. Shifts in the jet stream can have massive effects on the weather patterns of the Northern Hemisphere. It allows the cold air from the Arctic to plunge much further south.

"The heavy snowfalls and freezing temperatures which have marked March 2013 across the Northern Hemisphere are in stark contrast to March 2012, when many countries experienced their warmest-ever springs. The hypothesis that wind patterns are being changed because melting Arctic sea ice has exposed huge swaths of normally frozen ocean to the atmosphere would explain both the extremes of heat and cold. And of course, the end result of a shifting jet stream and changing ocean temperatures is something scientists have been saying repeatedly for years: more extreme weather events."
March 2013 has been unusually cold and snowy throughout the Northern Hemisphere 25 March 2013 

Oh dear!

23. Musée de la Vie romantique

One day,  a couple of weeks ago, we found ourselves in the area of the Musée de la Vie romantique. Of course we popped in. 

Located in the heart of the Paris district of Montemartre this townhouse was built in 1830.  It was the house of the painter Ary Scheffer and remained in his family until it was transferred to the city of Paris in 1983 to become the Museum of the Romantics - Musée de la Vie romantique - dedicated to the arts and literature of the first half of the 19th century.

The ground floor of the property houses keepsakes, furniture and portraits previously owned by the writer George Sand. The upper floor offers highlights of Ary Scheffer's art - portraits and historic and religious paintings.  Scheffer's studio, situated in the front courtyard, is also open and this is where he would entertain prestigious guests such as George Sand, Frédéric Chopin, Eugène Delacroix, Gioachino Rossini and Franz Liszt to name a few. 

Originally the house would have had full street frontage and gardens, but some of the land was sold and the entrance to the cobbled courtyard in front of the townhouse is now via this private entry.

The courtyard, with Ary Scheffer's climber-clad studio on the left of the photo and the remaining section of the garden on the right.

Ari Scheffer came to Paris from Holland in 1811 and became a fashionable portrait painter after General de La Fayette sat for him.  He became close to the royal family of Orléans and a major figure after the revolutionary days of 1830.  

I'll share with you my update on French history here: The Second Revolution of 1830 saw the overthrow of king Charles X, the French Bourbon monarch who had succeeded Napoleon 1 (Napoleon Bonaparte), and the ascent of his cousin Louise-Phillipe, Duke of Orléans who himself, after 18 precarious years on the throne would in turn be overthrown.  So the second revolution saw the Bourbon dynasty give way to the Orléans dynasty. History lesson over. 

So Ari Scheffer obtained a lot of work and therefore wealth, through his contacts with the new Orléans power-brokers.  But before we peak at his fabulous portraits, let's meet George Sand.  I've had to do a bit of research because I knew nothing of her, other than of her infamy. 

The second quote below is interesting but written by an amatuer.

"Born in Paris in 1804, Romantic writer Amandine Aaurore Lucile Dudevant wrote a number of highly regarded novels under the pseudonym George Sand.  Her most popular works are inspired by her affection for the rustic French countryside where she grew up." Wiki

"George Sand was an amazing author, personality and all-round woman. She earned as much notoriety for her Bohemian lifestyle as for her written work.  She was the most famous woman writer in 19th century France.  A prolific and iconoclastic author of novels, stories, plays, essays and memoirs she represented the epitome of French romantic idealism. She demanded for women the freedom of living that was a matter of course for the men of her day.  Her first independent novel, Indiana, the story of an unhappy wife who struggles to free herself from the imprisonment of marriage, made her an overnight celebrity. 

Subsequent novels, Valantine and Lélia, astounded readers with their frank exploration of women's sexual feelings and their passionate call for women's freedom to find emotional satisfaction.  But in the eyes of many critics, Sand's masterpiece is her autobiography.  Though she was a brilliant writer she was perhaps most famous for her personality and lifestyle.

Largely temperamental, rashly creative, fiery and opinionated, Sand pushed the limits in all kinds of ways.  But perhaps the most interesting is simply her look and the way she behaved herself (or rather, didn't) and how she acted around even the most distinguished aristocracy.  Sand, who happened to be married to a baron, left him (a great scandal in those times) took their two children, moved out on her own, changed her name to Sand and the rest is history.

She had open and notorious relationships with famous men she knew in Paris, artists, writers and musicians including Jules Sandeau, Alfred de Musset, Frédéric Chopin and others.  She was close friends with the best of them  - Eugène Delacroix, Franz Liszt and of course, most famously, with Chopin.  She and Chopin had a complicated relationship going from friends to lovers to eventually being more like mother and son. Their relationship was one of the most intriguing and unlikely in history.  Chopin was aristocratic, well-behaved, finicky, proper and a bit stuffy. And Sand was ... well, George.

To protest the unequal treatment accorded to women, Sand usually wore men's suits - complete with shirt, pants, jacket, tie, top hat ... the whole deal.  So it is easy to see why people had a bit of a problem with her.  Probably the reason she got away with her lifestyle was because she was such a famous writer.  She became something of an icon, the envy of so many proper ladies who wore their corsets and frilly dresses.  Not only did Sand wear mens's clothes, she also smoked cigars and had a rowdy sense of humour."

However, for all that her re-created sitting room seems pretty tame.

Upstairs is dedicated to Ari Scheffer.  Beautiful portraits of the two princesses of Orléans, one of whom was a famous sculptor.  Both sisters had been Scheffer's students.

Scheffer's mother.

Queen Marie-Amélie (de Orléans) in mourning.

A religious theme.

An interpretation of Danté's Inferno.

The poet, Lord Byron posing as a religious figure. We can probably guess which one.

And back outside to the sun-trap garden which is now part of the cafe.

Only a small musée, but very interesting.

22. The Paris Catacombs

It's still cold and wet in Paris.  I wonder if Spring will ever come?  

Yesterday we only managed a walk to Jack Wolfskin to buy a small surprise for each of the two grand-lads, before it came down in buckets and the driest place was a cafe table under a deep verandah.

But it cleared a bit today and we headed to the Paris Catacombs again.  Only a short  queue this time.  They allow only 200 people underground at any one time, so there is always some queueing required.  

The Catacombs were created at the end of the 18th century to serve as an ossuary - a final resting place of human remains.  

In 1780, Paris' largest cemetery at Les Halles was closed for public health reasons.  Apparently the locals were complaining that the milk kept going sour, the eggs went bad and the children got ill (not in that order, I hope).  Five years later the king agreed to remove the human remains.  

Some years earlier, it had been necessary to begin the huge task of shoring up thousands of old limestone quarries that run underneath most of the city, in order to prevent subsidence.  So it was decided that the bones from all of the cities cemeteries would be stored in the disused limestone quarries, in a district that was then on the outer edge of the city. The storage continued until 1860 when Baron Haussman began his astonishing redevelopment of Paris for Napoleon 111.  At the beginning of the 19th century the Catacombs opened to the public and have always attracted much interest.

As the vast underground limestone quarries and their tunnels were reinforced to stop Paris collapsing, the workmen carved records into the stone.

One of the many different bracing techniques.

In order to keep their bearings underground, the quarrymen carved on the walls the names of the streets and landmarks 60 metres above them, on the surface.

After about one kilometre of walking through the reinforced tunnels or galleries we arrived at the entrance to the ossuary. The ossuary door is framed by two stone pillars decorated with white geometric figures on black backgrounds. The lintel bears the inscription "Stop! This is the Empire of Death".  

Once inside this vast area you are surrounded by the remains of six million Parisians stacked in 780 metres of corridors.  

The first bones were brought here in 1786, and simply thrown into the corridors.  It was only around 1810 that the General Inspector of Quarries had the catacombs arranged in an orderly manner, forming a decorative facade with the skulls and long bones, behind which the remaining bones were piled.

It was very dark and in some areas, wet.   Flash photography was not allowed. My photos of the most decorative and interesting areas were too dark to show you.

Some areas were fenced off because they were too wet and slippery.

As we left the ossuary and neared the exit, we came upon two bell shaped subsistence cavities that illustrate the commonest type of damage sustained by the limestone quarries in Paris - that is, ceiling collapse.

I can't begin to explain how a ceiling collapse could cause these splendored curved roofs, but there was an excellent diagram which I have photographed that explains it well.  In the photo above you can see the alternating geological layers from when Paris was a shallow, tropical sea of sludge, 45 million years ago.

The entry to the Catacombs was down a spiral staircase of 130 vertical steps to a level more than twice as deep as the Metro tunnels.  The distance from the entry to the exit is 2km.  The constant temperature is 14°C which is not cold because there is no wind.

The exit is up an 18th century, extremely narrow, vertical,  spiral staircase of 83 steps - with no landings.  I was the first of 6 people going up, one after the other.  I kept up a good pace till I thought my lungs and thighs were both going to give way and then I called back, "I'll have to have a little rest, folks" and had stopped for all of 3 seconds when Paul pushed me from behind and said "Oh come-on, its only 8 more steps!" so on I go, emerging at the top to see another woman my age really struggling to get her breath back, sitting on a stool underneath the Defribrillateur.  Lucky for her she didn't need it!

I catch my breath and wonder about the four people who started up behind us.  They still hadn't emerged when we turned the corner at the end of the street in search of a cool drink.

And we certainly got that!  

This is what happens when you mis-order. One small beer and one large beer in French is 'Deux pressions, s'il vous plait: une petit et une grande.'  'Une grande bierre?' asks  the waiter, who has spotted the tourist.  Does Monsieur want 'le grande bierre' or 'le GRANDE bierre?'.  Knowing how thirsty he was, Paul confirmed he really wanted a large beer.  

And large it was! It turned out to be a litre!  But we had no trouble finishing it.  Ossuaries are a thirsty business and the sun had come out.

P.S. The waiter got a tip for catching Mr Sharp-as-a-Tack off-guard.