2016 March - Paris, mostly the Louvre

[If you only want to see the photos (and more than what I've posted) they are here]
[En français, ici ]

In early March, I visited Paris for a few days to give a talk about my research. I stayed an extra day and saw the Louvre (for the second time).

Notre Dame

The hotel had a small elevator. It is quite normal for Paris to have a tiny elevator. The first time I was in Paris, I stayed with a friend whose building had an elevator that was about half as big is this one. The funny thing is not (only) the tiny size. It is also the belief/claim that you can fix 6 people inside. I know that Parisians are small, but still.

This elevator was as wide as my shoulders. Shoe included for scale:

Also some strange choice in the carpet on the stairs:

My room had a bathroom a bit like a disco - opening the door, I laughed.

I did not sleep well and I woke up very early. I woke up every two hours because of stress before my presentation. My hotel was very close to the Jardin du Luxembourg, 6th arrondisment. The view from my room at sunrise:

Paris 13 is in another city, Villetaneuse. I believe the journey took about 20 minutes from the Gare du Nord. These trains at the university were very colorful:

On the way to the University from the bus stop, I remembered where I should turn thanks to the sheep . There is a herd of sheep walking around the university to eat the grass and also a hut where they perhaps live. It's a pity, but I do not have a picture of the sheep themselves. Here is the way to the mathematics department, after turning right at the sheep.

I had several good meals in Paris

The first night I ate with two other people. We ate at Le Coup de Torchon, it was close to the hotel. The menu with main + (entree or dessert) was maybe 1 or 2 euroes more than  main dish by itself, so, clearly, I took a menu. I had the veal and something else. the Veal was amazing.

The next evening, on Friday, I ate with a friend for her birthday at Bangkok Thailand. Our meal came with traditionally-prepared rice, steamed in small bamboo baskets. The restaurant was quite a fire hazard, the food was awesome.

Saturday, I re-visited the Loubre.

This time, I bought my ticket online and used the line (and entrance) for people who had done this. It was awesome and really fast.

My first time at the Louvre, I mainly visited the roman and etruscan statuary. This time, I started in the wrong directions (medieval italian paitings) before sorting myself out.

There were also some wood carvings, like this, which is, supposedly, Mary Magdalene. The story was that she spent the rest of her life as a hermit, wearing her hair as clothes. She was carried up every night by angels to heaven to hear the music:

This trip, I also paid attention to the actual building of the museum and the related sculptures on the ceiling.

There was a theme. A theme of annoying children ;). The following figures were on the same ceiling:

"I have a monsterous headache"

"Me too"

"I'm with you guys on this"

In 2012,hey opened a new exhibition on Islamic art. I found it somewhat accidentally.

I understood that around 1500, the Chinese were the only people who knew how porcelain is made. The other people were doing some kind of imitation using their own methods, like this:

Nearby, I also found some statues from the Egyptian Greco-Roman panthéon. Which is kind of funny. "fine, fine, Rome. We'll Romanize our gods. Have some leather mini-skirts and breast-plates. Is that Roman enough for you? "

After that, I found  sculpture gardens.  I really like sculpture. It's easier to take a picture of a scultpure than a person, the angle is important (it can tell a really different story depending on how you take a picture of it). There were many sculptures I found interestion.

An example: a happy boar, "playing" with a dog...

or, actually, in the process of being killed


A man who did not bleed much:

aie!

Some girls admiring the paintings:

A girl asleep with a book:

The artist:

in front of him

behind him

After so many white sculptures in the "gardens", I found this one rather shocking. The guys in black were shorter than me, maybe 4ft tall:

I wandered around and found the mesopotamian art.  Not as amazing as the Pergamon altar in Berlin, but lots of cool sculptures, laid out to recreate a bit of a city they'd excavated. I also learned through this that the louvre has the code of Hammourabi! (on the right)

I found it pretty sad, however, that the louvre hadn't always had enough security to protect its sculptures from vandalism. You can see a lot of scratches on many of the pieces:

Have you been to the louvre? Tell me about it (there's a comments box, I feel like I should encourage people to use it :) ).