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| Glass barriers at subway stops |
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| Art Deco signage with falling "N" |
We saw two excellent exhibits. The first was entitled La Ville Fertile: Vers une Nature Urbaine, which was an inspiring look at initiatives all over the world to incorporate an ecosystem approach to urban green space development. The New York City High Line was featured as well as many greening initiatives in Europe. The exhibit highlighted that the approach had changed from just adding parks and green spaces to considering the city as a large ecosystem. A shame that the Ford brothers ( Rob and "Thug" (Doug)) can only think about a NFL stadium for our waterfront.
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| NYC high line- great video went with the display |
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| great design |
The second exhibit was about Roberto Burle Marx, a Brazilian landscape architect (also a painter and ecologist and all round talented guy), who lived from 1909-1994. He is accredited with introducing modernist landscape architecture to Brazil. His designs of parks and gardens were very forward looking. He also spent a lot of time in the Brazilian forests and over 30 plants are named after him. My cousin, Laure, who is an architect, was the chef de projet for the design of the exhibit.
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| Roberto Burle Marx |
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| Conceptual drawing |
Alain and I shared a baguette just behind the museum with a very close view of the Eiffel Tower.
On our long walk home, we walked on the Quai Voltaire and saw the house where Voltaire died, which is now the Restaurant Voltaire and also the hotel where Charles Boudelaire, Jean Sibelius, Richard Wagner and Oscar Wilde visited. More accidental history!
We stopped for a drink at La Palette, a bar near the art school. It is been in existence since 1903 and many luminaries have imbibed there, including Hemingway and Picasso.
We then meandered over to Shakespeare & Company for a discussion with Leslie Dunton Downer, the author of a new book: The English is Coming. The book deals with the globalization of English. One of the more interesting statistics she cited was that today there are 3 non-native English speakers for every English speaker, a ratio that will increase to 6:1 in 2030. She also spoke about the past influence of French on the English language and also noted that the US has no official language. She had some fascinating tidbits of how flexible the English language is- incorporating other languages and then sending the new words back to the country of origin. My favourite involved the word "shampoo", which actually comes from Bengali.
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| Leslie Dunton Downer at Shakespeare & Co. |
We ate a home last night and I cooked rognons de veau (veal kidneys). They were quite good cooked with some shallots and red wine.
Today we did another run. Alain did 9.3 km and I did around 6.2 km. We were a bit tired, but we went to the Museum of Decorative Arts- there were two interesting exhibits- one entitled Les années 1990-2000, Histoire idéale de la mode contemporaine Vol.II which was a well edited collection of European fashion in this period. The other exhibit featured over 150 posters by Michal Batory (born in Poland, living in Paris). An incredible graphic artist, who incorporates surrealistic images into most of his work.
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| Everyone in the park- Louvre pyramid in view |
We shared a baguette in the beautiful park behind the museum Another 23C sunny day. Not a cloud in sight. Then we went for a drink at our favourite bar in the Palais Royal gardens. Saw a great window with baguettes and perfume.
Our last stop was at the Brachfeld Gallery on rue des Archives, which had a chocolate-making display/event with Andy Laird and Justine Pringle of Nunu Chocolates, from Brooklyn, New York. We had a chat with them, bought some salt caramels and then headed home.
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| Justine and Andy from Nunu chocolates |
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