Day Two of the Mother-Daughter Trip to Paris

June 29 - July 1, 2003

After breakfast at our hotel on Monday morning, we walked to the Cluny Museum (also known as the Musee National du Moyen Age), which was only blocks away. On the way there we passed a street with several butchers shops, including for the chevallier pictured here. Yum? Haven't gone that native yet.

Left - the courtyard at the Cluny Museum.

The Cluny Museum is one of the most enjoyable museums I have visited in a long time. It is fairly small and houses collections of medieval art and artifacts. The building includes 2nd century Roman baths, so it is interesting on it's own. The collections include the 21 mutilated heads of statues of the Kings of Judea from the Notre Dame, chopped off by French revolutionaries (they reminded me so much of the angry attacks on the statues of Sadam Hussein this year.) The most exciting piece in the museum is the tapestry, La Dame a la Licorne (The Lady and the Unicorn), woven in the late 15th century. It is exquisite. The many other exhibits, including stained glass, manuscripts, more tapestries, reliquaries, and sculptures, were all impressive.

One of the things that made our visit to the Cluny museum especially fun was an activity for the kids that I have been meaning to do for years. I finally took the advice of many books and magazines, and started our visit in the gift shop. I told Ellen to pick out any 10 postcards and then we would find the items on the cards in the museum. Well, it was a made-to-order treasure hunt and Ellen was quite enthusiastic about our visit. I highly recommend this approach for any museum and will use it more often. I think I had gotten lazy about taking the kids to museums, so this was a good kick in the pants.

After our time at the Cluny, we grabbed some lunch at McDonald's (yes, McDonald's - it's very French) and had a picnic in the park behind the museum. Of course, Ellen and Bridget provided the local pigeons with a picnic too. Then we walked to Notre Dame where the birdfeeding continued.

We took a quick peek inside Notre Dame and then headed down the block for some ice cream. We walked around the back of Notre Dame, to see those flying butresses.

Behind Notre Dame is a memorial to the deported - those who were sent from France to the concentration camps in Germany. It is a very stark memorial, with sharp edges and a feeling of being trapped. The lights (on the right) each represent a life cut short by the Holocaust.

It is always a tricky task to balance the grim realities of the historical sites and memorials we visit with the indulgence of leisure travel. In typical tourist fashion we moved on to a delicious dinner at an Indian restaurant and great conversation with our new friends.

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