Friday, May 30. There are two incidents which I (John) forgot to tell yesterday. (1) When we boarded the always packed Metro, a young seated lady offered this old man (ME!) her seat. I politely declined. (2) A few minutes later, while walking from the Metro to the Louvre, a lady stopped me at the EXIT and told me she observed someone trying to break into my backpack. She advised me to “never wear your backpack in the Metro”. Another observation: I’ve seen more people smoking the first day in Paris than I’ve seen in the past 6, maybe 12, months in Dallas.
So last night we went on the “Night Fat Tire” bike ride. There were somewhere between 80 and 100, all English speaking, people signed up for this! Fortunately we were in groups of 20. My bike was no prize: a loose headset, the 3-speed Nexus drive train slipped in 2nd gear and neither headlight nor taillight worked - which was not too good since we cycled until midnight! But it was a fun event and included a boat trip on the Seine river (with plenty of wine to drink). One particularly interesting thing we saw on the boat trip was boat coming toward us and the top level had maybe 200 people exercising. Our guide said it was primarily local people. Of course no one on the bike tour wore a helmet; they weren’t even offered. Below are photos from the ride.
Left above: “SAUF” is a French word that means except and in this context means “One way for everyone except bicyclists”. We need an English/American/Texan version of that word. Photo on the right is of a family picnicking on the Right Bank. It reminded me of a Cartier-Bresson photo of a family picnic on the banks of a river. Later that evening we heard of a Henri Cartier-Bresson photo exhibit at the Pompidou Museum and quickly changed plans for tomorrow. The Musee d’Orsay will have to wait for another trip.
It’s Friday and we’re at the Pompidou
It’s a trying and tiring day. Although our Museum Passes get us into the Center, the special exhibit costs us $50, audio guides included. Then there is an hour and 20 minute wait in three queues. Once in the exhibit, it is enormous – over 500 photos and paintings. Plus several videos.
Two photos on left are from inside the center, see end of the queue in the 1st picture. And almost at the end of the queue in the third picture, over an hour after the first two photos.
Above. Left, photo from China. Center shows that the Pompidou is not overly crowded and maybe the wait was worth it. At the Louvre, there are so many people that you cannot get within a mile of popular works such as the Mona Lisa. The photo on the right is of Henri himself, who hated to have his picture taken.
So after three days of walking over all of Paris, visiting three museums (which I find only slightly less tiring than shopping) and walking up and down thousands of steps in the Metro stations, I’m beat. Totally tired. I need something relaxing to do. Like riding a bike. So that’s where we’re headed. Tomorrow we take the high speed TGV train to Joule-Les-Tours. And on Sunday, we begin riding.
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