Further trip theme correction: sewage and art

We started our day at the Sewer Museum, a successful entry after at least 8 years of trying to get in here – closed for the day, closed for remodeling etc. and, I have to say, I’m not sure it was the best use of our time but we did get see the museum mascots for sale above and I did find the museum bathrooms to be quite charming with this live time diagram of what you happened to be flushing down. What I did not yet understand was that sewage was going to direct the general theme of our day so stay tuned. (Note to our hotel toilet: SEE how the waste is supposed to go??)

I’m pasting this mid-tour sewer photo here for you and you should be grateful that I cannot insert a smell into this blog:

We rebounded from our sewer tour and ended up with 12 lovely miles, strolling through Paris. From the sewers, we made a random and unplanned stop at the Modern Art Museum, where I got to see the Electricity Fairy mural by Raoul Duffy, from 1937. Here’s Ron, still reeling from the sewer museum aroma:

Here’s Ron, awestruck in a more positive way:

Here’s Electricity Fairy in full view. My camera could not catch it so this photo is not mine:

Electricity Fairy is 600 square feet of “art”, further cementing my conviction that my appreciation of art is tied to size. Not 30 minutes later, I was stopped in my tracks by this art below, which looked especially lovely framed by Beaux Arts architecture in the background. It’s called Bouquet of Tulips by Jeff Koons from 2019.

We wandered into the Petite Palace, mostly to see this cool building below. It’s full of art so I sat down on a bench and tried to keep track of Ron as he wandered around. Ron also tried to spend 5 Euros on a drink here. We were at the 7 mile mark at this point and starting to fade. I protested the outrageous price and marched us onward and so, to save us a little cash, we instead spent over 30 Euros on this snack, but at least Ron got a crepe!

Having just ignored the contents of one art museum, we headed over to the other big event of the day: the D’Orsay Museum, second biggest art museum in Paris. I like the D’Orsay because it’s housed in a former train station. The interior architecture looks like this:

Ron got really excited here – as he has done a needlepoint of this Monet:

From the D’Orsay , we headed to our final site of the day: the Shoah Memorial. The Shoah Memorial is a museum dedicated to Jewish history leading up to and during World War II. It is an enormous repository of pictures, letters, and artifacts from France (and other countries) during the war. Every picture has an English translation so we could really follow the flow of the memorial. There’s tens of thousands of pictures – families, children playing, camps, deportations, ghetto life, resistance fighters and more. There’s a Wall of Names (picture not mine – no photos allowed) with 76,000 people listed, all deported from France. There are 11,000 children listed there:

There was also what looked like a bolt of tan fabric – like what you’d see for sale at Michael’s, but the museum tag revealed that the fabric was actually made from millions of strands of the hair of Jewish women. Again, this picture is not mine but I really want to share the visual impact of that display:

I come to these sites to bear witness as the only honor I can offer. I know it’s horrifying.

I will leave you with the final excitement for our day, which is that our hotel has had a plumbing fiasco resulting in intermittent water shut-offs and non-functional toilets – much like the 19th century Parisian pioneers we learned about earlier. The upshot of these disobedient toilets is that we’ve had various hotel personnel in and out of our hotel all evening, just the four of us, peering into the toilet, reminding people that the toilet was…ahem…in use when it broke.

And these last pictures: Berthillon Ice Cream – fantastic and worth seeking out if you’re in Paris. 11 Euros per little bowl and I feel it was a solid value. And the Holy Trinity Cathedral with the Eiffel Tower in the background:

And finally, classic Paris:

And another winner from everyone’s favorite photographer, Ron, who has once again confirmed to me that he feels no need to use the viewfinder when taking photos: