Paris - Modern Art and Opera

Monday 29 December

Morning dawns in Paris. Bron & Steve have had a pretty sleepless night due to a message from our Willow Vale neighbours advising us that our power pole blew down in the huge winds. Electricity has now been cut – “could they do anything?”. Steve talks to them & asks if they could find out how we go about getting a new power pole & electricity re-connected (a daunting thought from France in the wee hours of the morning). We both somehow manage the odd hour sleep, but interspersed with thoughts of fridge/freezer, pool, Christmas/new year period etc.

We set out on our first “real” day in Paris, walking through the Place Vendome to see The Ritz, Chanel, etc. to the Tuillieries. Despite being very cold, the walk is delightful - any walk in Paris on a sunny day is delightful - although the ducks and birds in the Tuilleries appear to be a little peeved that the water in the fountains is frozen and have to stand rather than wade! Onto the Louvre – huge queues are wrapped around the square. Security directs us to another entrance which also has a huge queue – once again we hit the “France vacation period”.

We decide to forgo the Louvre until after new year when the crowds should die down a bit & head down to the Museum of Modern Art at the Georges Pompediou Centre. Queues here are a lot less (we ultimately discover that we had accidentally hit the lunch time hiatus period...) and we head into this maze of a building. It looks fabulous but really is a bit of challenge to work out what’s where. There are some amazing pieces, but after 4 floors of art, we decide we are “art-ed out” and too exhausted to really absorb any more – a shame as the final floor had some really fabulous exhibits (around 20 rooms).

Heading out we see a huge queue snaking out of the entrance – everyone had finished lunch & headed down here. As we are going to the ballet tonight at the Paris Opera we have a late lunch/early dinner at a cosy, cramped local bistro before heading home to rest & get changed.

The Paris Opera is an amazing building – hard to believe that there are so many shade of gold, or that you could actually embellish walls and ceilings to that extent. Each room is more and more mind-boggling - few (if any other!) opera houses can boast a ceiling painted by Chagall. Tonight’s performance is “Raimonda” by Glazunov performed by the Paris Opera Ballet. It really is a spectacular performance – superb costumes, wonderful sets & great music. Rose, although tired, is spell bound at the incredible point work of the prima ballerina.

We taxi home, exhausted by exhilarated by tonight’s performance.