Thanksgiving in Paris...
Thanksgiving dinner is not something I usually associate with Paris, but one of my eagle-eyed Canadian friends here noticed that the Canadian pub near the corner of rue St-Michel and the Quai des Augustins was having a Thanksgiving dinner special today. And since I'd been feeling sorry for myself for missing my Thanksgiving dinner back home, it seemed just the thing.
Not that one can really feel sorry for oneself for eating Parisian food - !
The adventure of the day was going to the Musee Cluny, the town house of the medieval abbot of Cluny, transformed into a museum, famous for the tapestry series La Dame a la Licorne (The Lady and the Unicorn) from the late 15th century.
You'd think that, being devoted to medieval art, the Musee Cluny would be one of my favourite places on earth, and of course I love it. But I like the Cloisters in New York more. The think about the Musee Cluny is that it's mostly full of very late medieval art, especially 15th century art, and Northern European art, that I don't love nearly as much as the early medieval period, or the Mediterranean art. I wondered if it were that so much art was destroyed in the Hundred Years War.
Still. Wonderful.
Photos of the day:
1. On the bridge we have to cross to get off the island, there are small locks in the mesh. These are put there by lovers to pledge their endless love.
2. The Musee Cluny. Highlander fans may recognize the doorway where we met Darius.
3. Inside the Musee Cluny: Stained glass depiction of the Day of Judgement. It looked like a tarot card to me.
4. There used to be large statues of French kings on the facade of Notre-Dame cathedral. These were torn down, smashed and scattered during the French Revolution. They were later found - one was being used as a boundary stone in a marketplace - and put into the Musee Cluny. The audioguide, referring to the headless bodies of kings, remarked, "The headless state allows us to admire the drapery of their garments." Well... yes. Just because that's all that's left there to admire.
Across from the headless standing bodies (of men who are not Saint Denis, carrying his own head) some royal heads are displayed.
Seems those French Revolutionaries couldn't get enough of beheading kings.
5. Musee Cluny.
6. Baby Saint John, with a cool toy.
7. The Unicorn Tapestry. The light was very dim (to preserve the colours of the tapestry) so the pictures are likewise murky.
8. The Unicorn looks at its reflection.
9. The Unicorn and the Monkey.
10. A wood carving tableaux from northern Europe.
11. A Book of Hours.
12. Four partridges in stained glass.
13. The courtyard of the Musee Cluny, with rosiespark and Tasia.
14. Four Canadians having a Parisian Thanksgiving dinner: Jan, Tasia, me, and Ingrid. That's Bobby Orr in the photo beside me.
