Clue at the Musée des Arts et Métiers

Last Saturday was the 10th annual Night of the Museums.  Most museums were open all night long with special activities.  We went to Musée des Arts et Métiers to solve a mystery.  We were given a booklet with suspects, possible weapons, and possible places were the crime could have taken place.  Yes, Cluedo! 

 Bertillon mène l'enquête, le jeu de piste pour les 7-12 ans et leurs parents !

L’Abbé Grégoire, fondateur du Conservatoire national des arts et métiers, a disparu. Depuis hier, le criminologue Bertillon piétine dans son enquête. Il a besoin de jeunes détectives enthousiastes pour l’aider à résoudre ce mystère.
Accompagné de tes parents, tu devras étudier les armes, les suspects et les lieux jusqu’à "formuler une accusation". Viens décoder le message laissé par l’Abbé Grégoire.
C’est un jeu de piste palpitant qui demande un sens affuté de l’observation et une bonne capacité de déduction. Es-tu prêt à relever le défi ?

 We followed clues around the museum to narrow down the who, what, and where.  The booklets were very well done and we visited some cool parts of the museum we hadn't seen before.

 Multiplication machine

 Detective

 This creepy automaton was made for Marie Antoinette.  She could play six different songs!

 I've taken this photos before, but this plane is so pretty (even if it did crash shortly after takeoff).

 All sorts of antique bikes

Many children's dream

I asked the crossing guard near our school if I could take a photo of his sign.

Paris 1900: La Ville Spectacle

I went to see Paris 1900.  There was a lot going on at about this time in Paris, France.  Electric lights made it possible for entertainment to continue all night long. 

 

 

 The amount of construction done for the World Fair was amazing.  This poster shows each country's exhibition hall.  This link has more information and better photos http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exposition_Universelle_%281900%29

 Souvenirs

 Art Nouveau from Sèvres

There were films projected onto some of the walls that were footage taken at the Exposition by the Lumière brothers.  The brothers are credited with being the first filmmakers in history.  As you walk in, there is a clip showing people walking in and out of the Petit Palais.

 Garden dress from the fashion house of Worth
There were several amazing dresses, but without a flash I couldn't take good photos.  Here is an online exhibit with some examples of Worth.  Wealthy women from all over the world would come to Paris once a year to have their wardrobe made and the most prestigious fashion house was Worth.  This Vogue article gives a little history and an impressive list of clients--Edith Wharton, Isabella Stewart Gardener,...

Jane Goodall

 Lillian and I had the opportunity to go and hear Jane Goodall speak.  She is holding a birthday cake because she is 80 this year.  That is Lillian's head and next to her is a friend from Girl Scouts.  Goodall travels 300 days of the year speaking about her work and encouraging people to make the world a better place.  She is incredibly articulate and seems so smart and so kind.

From her website:

In July 1960, at the age of 26, Jane Goodall traveled from England to what is today Tanzania and bravely entered the little-known world of wild chimpanzees. She was equipped with nothing more than a notebook and a pair of binoculars. But with her unyielding patience and characteristic optimism, she won the trust of these initially shy creatures. She managed to open a window into their sometimes strange and often familiar-seeming lives. The public was fascinated and remains so to this day.

Today, Jane’s work revolves around inspiring action on behalf of endangered species, particularly chimpanzees, and encouraging people to do their part to make the world a better place for people, animals, and the environment we all share.

/http://www.janegoodall.org/

If you want to see Jane Goodall release a chimpanzee into a refuge and see the chimp give Jane a hug (which is not something chimpanzees usually do), you can watch this video.  I got teary.

Picasso and Caillebotte

 Pierre and I are checking out what our retirement will look like.  We are spending our days together and this week we manage to see two different exhibits.  We went to Cité de la Céramique and saw Picasso Céramiste et la Méditerranée.  Unfortunately, you can't take photos inside.  The Sèvres museum has an impressive collection that explains the history of ceramics in France and around the world.  This Picasso exhibit focuses on his partnership with Madoura, a French pottery workshop.

 Our visit to the museum in Barcelona changed my mind about Picasso.  I had never been too impressed by what I had seen.  I realized that I just hadn't seen very much.  Seeing so much of his work organized in chronological order really made me appreciate how talented he was; the scope and variety of his work is very impressive.  The pottery is very clever and playful.

 

 There are new posters in the metro to encourage people to remember their manners.   

We took the commuter rail out to Yerres, a suburb about twenty minutes from Paris. There is a  Gustave Caillebotte show that focuses on the paintings he made while on his family's estate in Yerres.  Caillebotte was an Impressionist and he had money.  He was a  patron to many of the other Impressionists.  He bought many of their paintings while they were struggling and ended up with a huge collection.  He died young at 45 and he wanted to give his collection to France.  Renoir was his executor.  France did not want his collection.  They finally took about half of it.  The collection included many of the most famous impressionist paintings.   In the twenties, after the collection had been offered to France three different times, France realized the value of the collection and tried to accept the rest of it.  It was too late.

 Caillebotte's own work ranges from very realistic to looking more like the other Impressionists.  www.gustavcaillebotte.org/ has photos of all of his work.  The house and estate have been turned into a park, so you could often see where he must have painted certain paintings. 

 There were many poems displayed along the river.

This pagoda on the estate is perched upon a hill that hides an ice house that is buried into the hillside.  I really enjoyed the exhibit and Yerres is a short train ride from Paris and seems like a world away.

Sancerre and Guédelon

 I know nothing about wine, but I have discovered Sancerre (white, although I am sure the red also lovely) while in Paris.  When Pierre saw that we would be near Sancerre we decided we should pay a visit.  I even bought a poster that has a bottle of Sancerre AND a goat on it!

 Sancerre is perched up on a hill and surrounded by vineyards.

Sancerre was also the site of the infamous Siege of Sancerre (1572–1573) during the Wars of Religion where the Huguenot population held out for nearly eight months against the Catholic forces of the king. The siege was one of the last times in European history where slings (trebuchet), the "Arquebuses of Sancerre", were used in warfare.

 

 Our next stop was Guédelon where some crazy people are building a fortified castle and pretending like they are living in the Middle Ages.  They are only using building techniques and tools from the Middle Ages.  

After an archaeological study of a nearby château revealed the traces of a chateau fort from the Middle Ages, the chateau owner came up with the idea of Guédelon.

 

 They have done a lot of research to see how things used to be done.  This human hamster wheel helps to pull heavy material to the builders.  How did builders really work in the 13th century?

 

 

 The blacksmiths makes all of the tools used on the site.

 These are roof tiles.  Thet will, of course, be fired in a kiln fueled by wood.

 There is a cabin where material is dyed and paint is made to paint designs on the inside of the castle walls.

 One sunny moment on a cold, rainy day.

 The girls participated in a stone carving workshop.  It was hard work.

 

The building began in 1998 and they expect to complete the project sometime around 2023.  We learned a lot.  This place makes Upper Canada village look like the space age.

Zoo de Beauval and Bourges

Sylvia has an upcoming exposé on pandas, so we thought we would visit Zoo de Beauval, which is the only zoo in France with pandas.

I am not a huge fan of zoos, but this one seemed well run.

The pandas were up and eating.  They need to eat a lot of bamboo!  They also have koalas; the only one who was awake was very cute.

Exotic North American animal

Grandparents, guess what Sylvia bought with some of her birthday money?

We stopped in the town of Bourges to check things out and to eat some dinner. 

Who was Jacques Coeur?

In about 1429 he formed a commercial partnership with two brothers named Godard; and in 1432 he was at Damascus, buying and bartering, and transporting the wares of the Levant—gall-nuts, wools and silks, mohair, brocades and carpets—to the interior of France by way of Narbonne. In the same year he established himself at Montpellier, and there began the gigantic operations which have made him illustrious among financiers. Details are wanting; but it is certain that in a few years he placed his country in a position to contend fairly well with the great trading republics of Italy, and acquired such a reputation as to be able, mere trader as he was, to render material assistance to the knights of Rhodes and to Venice itself.

In 1449, the great trader's glory was at its height. He had represented France in three embassies, and had supplied goods for the war which had ousted the English from Normandy. He was invested with various offices of state, and possessed the most colossal fortune that had ever been amassed by a private Frenchman. The sea was covered with his ships; he had 300 managers in his employ, and business houses in all the chief cities of France. He had built houses and chapels, and had founded colleges in Paris, Montpellier and Bourges. The house in Bourges was exceptionally magnificent and remains today one of the finest monuments of the Middle Ages in France. He also built there the sacristy of the cathedral and a sepulchral chapel for his family.

 

We also visited the cathedral in Bourges.