Paris Trip: Day 7: The Pompidou, The Pantheon, and walking about

On Mondays most museums are closed. The Pompidou is one of the few left open, and is a good call for spending a Monday afternoon. I won't lie, I wasn't excited about seeing this museum. I'm in one of the most beautiful historical cities in the world, surrounded by things built hundreds of years ago, things sculpted before Paris was a city, things painted before Columbus was born. And I'm going to spend a day seeing a canvas with a few strokes of paint on it called "art"? It just didn't seem like the best way to spend the day. But itineraries are itineraries, so we embarked.

The building of the Pompidou is well worth the visit. The Pompidou sits on top of one of the oldest parts of the city. Many of these buildings that were nearly a millennia old were demolished for the construction of the museum. The buildings around it are still very old, so you can get an idea of what used to be here. Sat down in the middle of these small cobblestone streets and the myriad of chimneys coming out of the tired shingled roofs of the compacted buildings is this:

It is a very interesting and cool building that is for sure, and it 100% does not match any of what is around it. But, it adds to its appearance instead of diminishes it. If it were surrounded by other modern architecture you wouldn't notice it, but here it is as if it is one red elephant in a pack of grey ones, you can't help but notice it.

Juxtapositions:

We went to the top of the exterior escalator and got a great view of the city:

At this point I felt like I could just leave, I had no desire to see the art inside, but I'm really glad I did go inside. It really changed my perception on modern art, and I realized that a lot of it is very good. I had a lot of fun photographing people enjoying (sometimes not) the art as well.

This is more of what I was expecting to see. Artist 1: "Look, at the art I have created. It makes a statement about how the monochromatic and conformist world crushes those with a view that differs from the mainstream." Artist 2: "Brilliant!"

After the Pompidou Erin and I just wondered around a little. We worked our way to the Ise de la cite, then over onto the Ise de St. Louis. From there we went to the Latin Quarter. Here are just some of the photos I took along the way:

It was a windy day:

In the Latin Quarter we had some hot chocolate and then went to the Pantheon.

The Pantheon is one of the most schizophrenic buildings in all of Paris. It was originally a Church, but done in a very Roman theme. The Church itself broke a lot of boundaries: it was in the shape of a Greek cross instead of a Roman cross, it disguised the flying buttresses with outside walls, and was done in a much different style from the Gothic cathedrals seen around the city.

The church was to be dedicated to the patron saint of Paris St. Genevieve, who legend has kept off the invading Huns with her prayers. The church was finished right at the start of the French Revolution. The French Revolution went very anti-church. Notre Dame was even threatened to be destroyed in their quest to destroy the Catholic church. After that its role continued to transfer back and forth from a religious establishment to a secular one with each ruling party that followed after the Revolution. In the end, secularism won out, and currently the church is the final resting place to some of France's greatest thinkers.

The inside was painted under Napoleon(?) to show scenes of great French catholic tradition; such as the life and death of Joan of Arc, the story of St. Genevieve, etc.

A statue of the Republic:

After exploring the main floor we went downstairs to the Crypt

I won't lie, I tried to touch it, but I couldn't reach :(

Voltaire and Rousseau are also buried here.

Erin shows how different the French restrooms are from ours. The separation from men to women is so much less: