Journee du Patrimone

The Journee du Patrimone is the one day a year when many of the museums and all of the public buildings are open to the public free of charge. Whoopie! Free entree! Duane loves free stuff!

The Picasso Musee, which had been on our bucket list, was open for free today. It had been closed indefinitely for renovation (the French are famous for this - it might take 6 months or 2 years to renovate, they never know).  Here, however, is where it gets hilarious! It was open, but there was nothing in it. Just clean, white, freshly dry-walled and painted bare walls. These French are such Tricksters! We laughed and laughed and laughed. There was a total of one Picasso!

We laughed some more and headed out to the Hotel de Ville . . . . Not a Hotel at all, but basically the City Hall. Home of the mayor of the city and the city council and all the administrative offices, etc. One would think this might be so boring you'd want to stick an ice pick in your temple, but then you don't understand the French. This is the fanciest building we have seen to date, outside of Versailles herself!

I know! This is the entrance hall to the City Hall. Just like yours at home, right? These people know how to put up a fancy, schmancy building! Nothing is too good for the mayor of Paris! 

And they're just getting started. . . This goes on for room after room after room!

One of the side rooms leading into the main hall. 

And this is just one of dozens of light fixtures to keep the mayor's work well lit. 

And this little piece of work over the fire place . . . It went on and on like this. But you must see the outside too. It takes up an entire city block and then some. 

As you can see. It was a bit overcast, but still a wonderful day. 

And then just to keep you all on balance (It is the Sabbath Day after all) we visited a cathedral. 

This one had "Great Stained Glass" or as we've come to call it, "GREAT GLASS."

I hope this shows up well on your giant computer screens at home! It is quite spectacular!

But after all this splendor we had to tone it down a bit. We visited a house. Not just any house, mind you! Victor Hugo's house! As you know, Victor is the writer of such Classics as "The Hunchback of Notre Dame" and of course everyone's favorite, "Les Miserables." It was so ordinary we didn't take any pictures, but it was a nice way to come down after the Hotel DeVille.