Sunday in Paris

I did manage to get up in time to have breakfast with Neil and some colleagues before they took off to pre-conference meetings. Then I collected my wits and my tourist gear and set out to rediscover Paris. It just happened that this weekend was the Doors Open event, Journées de la Patrimoine, and there were a lot of interesting buildings to be visited. The first on my list–the nearest—was the Musée Pasteur, but it would not be open until the afternoon and it wasn’t even 11. So I began by buying a 3-day pass for the Metro and buses and hanging out in the sunshine at Metro Pasteur. (Well, I was also finishing a Harry Potter book, and used my sitting time in various ways, mostly just watching the passing scene.)

Pasteur is a stop on Metro line 13, which goes many interesting places, and is elevated, not underground, through the scenic parts, such as near the Eiffel Tower. I got off on the Right Bank of the Seine, at Trocadero, where there is a pair of huge museum buildings arranged in a horse-shoe facing the Tower. I parked myself inside a café (Café du Trocadero of course) and had lunch, watching the people, traffic and sunshine. The chestnuts were bothering me (dry autumnal leaves are apparently just as tear-inducing as the spring flowers) when I was outside, and inside, the smokers were annoying as well!

After lunch I was just wandering and found that the Museum of Architecture, which will not be opening for another year or so, was having a sneak preview. That sounded intriguing and it certainly was! The 2 huge buildings are known as the Palais de Chaillot and they are vestiges of the Expositions of 1900 and 1937. There are various science museums in one, but the other is becoming an architecture museum, among other things. What do you display in an architecture museum? First of all, there are the buildings themselves. The 1900 part has had some of its 1937 façade stripped away and the Eiffel-inspired steel arches exposed. It is all still a work in progress…the future elevator was just a hole in the floor and the stairs were nothing but blue lines drawn on the wall. The other thing you put in such a museum is full-scale casts of famous medieval facades…which were made in the 19th century, and have turned out to be invaluable for modern restorative work. They are really impressive, because the plaster has all been coloured like the original stones and bricks, but when you walk around the back, there’s really nothing there, except some wooden braces! Had a guided tour and really learned quite a lot. PHOTOS SOON I hope.

Then it was time to head to the Institut Pasteur, to tour its museum. The building stands on a little campus with a garden, behind a fence of course. The museum does not grab your attention at first, as there are many panels to read about various important French scientists I never heard of. Then the tour leads you upstairs and you begin to see the past a little more clearly. On the top floor are some bedrooms, with the original dark, stuffy furnishings, a “modern” (ca. 1900) bathroom, and a lab displaying some of Pasteur’s actual instruments, and his test tubes with actual liquids and things inside them, preserved. That was intriguing. Downstairs were the salons (full or works of art, medals and other items presented to Pasteur by grateful people, princes and nations …he had them all displayed in fancy cases, even during his lifetime) and dining room, which was used as the boardroom by the Institute. The house has not really been lived in since Pasteur’s widow died. And then, on to the basement for the most extravagant part of the tour: the crypt!

Does the word “crypt” conjure up a dank, dark, musty, spooky place? Well, this one isn’t! It is in the basement, but it just shines with light and (self-) importance. The walls and ceiling are covered in gold and polychrome mosaics, much like the ones we saw last year in Alsace. All Pasteur’s important scientific achievements are shown in symbols (vine leaves for discoveries about wine, yeast and fermentation, the cow for milk pasteurization, mad dogs for rabies treatments, and a half-dozen more). He is buried under a simple but very large, black marble slab, which is the only undecorated object in the crypt. Light apparently comes from a dome window in the ceiling, but I realized it is the same spot where light mysteriously comes up through a grill just at the entry on the floor above….

After all this adventuring, I had dinner by myself at the hotel, since Neil was out at an official dinner. The Callard girls invited me to go to a movie, but I was too tired, so simply watched Erin Brockovitch on TV, in French of course.