Darcy's Paris Blog

Visiting the Pompidou Centre

Woke up today to rain. Not bad, though, since it made me feel less guilty about being lazy. (It turned out to be a beautiful day, of course, after raining the entire weekend Neil was here.) After getting my act together, I headed to Abbesses to take the metro to the Pompidou Centre, the only major museum in Paris I hadn’t yet visited. And since most of the museums here are free today, being the first Sunday of the month, I decided to take advantage. The building itself is almost a work of modern art – the architect basically turned the building inside-out, putting all the ductwork in color, and on the outside of the walls. Very interesting. I toured all the permanent exhibits, some of which I thought were wonderful, and some of which left me a little cold. (They did have the requisite giant blue square required of all modern art museums.) My favorite was definitely Matisse collage “Sorrow of the King.” (Katie – took a picture of it thinking of you!) There’s also a great view over the city from the upper floors of the building, where I took a few more photos. After being in there for a couple of hours (it took me a while to figure out how to get to half of the exhibits) it was time for fresh air. I walked across to the flower market on the Ile de la Cite for more fresh flowers, but didn’t see anything, and headed back home. Got off the metro again at Place de Clichy, just to see what it looks like in the daytime. It looks like a great place to grab a drink or dinner, and it’s got a movie theater, too. That’ll definitely become one of my hangout places – no metro required!

Came home, did stuff around the house, and got ready for the week. It’s a busy one coming up…

http://www.flickr.com/photos/darcydement/date-taken-calendar/

posted by Darcy @ 6:19 PM