Paris and Three Cities in The Netherlands

Paris and Three Cities of the Netherlands

THe Cluny Museum and the Rodin Museum

We began the day with a visit to the Cluny Museum. The first room of interest for us was a room of stained glass, beautifully displayed. Some of them were given to the Cluny Museum from Sainte Chapelle which they had removed when they renovated some of their windows.

Below are some closeups of these panels.

We saw a number of rooms with tapestries and church statuary and altarpieces. We had hoped to see the Lady and the Unicorn tapestries, but they are being restored. We saw a movie of the restoration process but did not see the originals.

Another large room had been a Roman frigidarium. The museum is located on the site of a Roman bathhouse which was in the center of town during the Roman years. The 40 foot high Roman ceiling is the largest Roman vault in France. Here also were over 20 stone heads of the Biblical kings of Judah which had once decorated the front of Notre Dame. In 1793, an angry mob of Revolutionaries mistook the kings of Judah for the kings of France and abused and decapitated the statues. They were buried and found on 1977, when some diggers accidentally unearthed them.

The last few photos below show the building housing the museum and the remains of the Roman bath.

Next we walked to the St. Sulpice church (the church in the Da Vinci Code) for their half hour organ concert. It was a wonderful concert beginning with Prelude and Fugue by Mendelsson followed by two other pieces. After lunch we walked to the Delacroix Museum and we were greatly disappointed that they were showing very little while the museum was being renovated. If we had not gotten in with our Museum Card we would have asked for our money back! Since we had a lot of time left in our day we walked to the Rodin Museum and again we were disappointed that the large rooms of displays of his most famous sculptures were closed while they are in a 3 year renovation. However, they did show a number of other rooms with some of his smaller works, like The Cathedral below. It was also good to see some of his larger works outdoors - the Burghers of Calais and the Thinker. So it was still worthwhile and the walk the large garden was very enjoyable on a sunny day with beautiful clouds overhead.

After this busy day, we walked back to the hotel and rested up for moules again for dinner at the same restaurant we went to last evening.

Tomorrow is our last day in Paris and we will be visiting the Notre Dame and St. Severin.