Chock Full o'History

John taking over the posting duties briefly.

As Michelle wrote earlier, today's two sites were the Cluny Museum (formally know as the Musee de la Moyen Age, or Musuem of the Middle Ages) and the Invalides complex which houses the French Army Museum and Napoleon's tomb (along with a few others).

A few more facts about the Cluny - the building itself was a medevial abbey, which itself was built atop the remnants of a Roman bath. The bath has been excavated and normally you can enter it, but it's closed for "travail", or work, right now. From the street it looks like they may be excavating more of the Roman ruins on the lot.

The Cluny is also a rather small musuem, and even if it had been completely staffed and open, it wouldn't have taken a full two hours - but what it contains is still pretty amazing. Many rooms have small plastic or laminated cards with explanations of the contents of the room in various languages. (So far English & Spanish are the most common alternatives to French we've seen, but the Cluny has guides in German, Polish and other tounges.)

The Invalides complex is simply massive. Louis the XIV built it as a hospital for wounded and disabled soldiers, and part of the complex still fills that purpose today. It's actually a French military post right smack in the middle of southwest Paris - the security is provided by armed gendarmes (they all wear sky-blue shirts with "GENDARME" across the back). In fact, some sort of change-of-command ceremony took place today in a different part of the complex - I doubt we could have gotten in to see it, as part of the complex is restricted-access.

The medevial arms and armor section has a huge - and I mean HUGE - collection of weapons and plate armor on display. Swords of all varieties, lots of pole arms, many primitive firearms - including and arequebus that looks like it could shoot tennis balls. Ben found the combination boar spear - pistol contraptions fascinating. They also have a small selection of arms and armor from the Orient, with one small room devoted to Japaneseweapons and armor.

There's a number of wall placards with explanations of what you're looking at - most have the main text in French with English, Spanish and German translations in a smaller font. There are also pamphlets you can pick up at the ticket office, though with our museum pass we had bypassed that initially and didn't see it until the end of our visit.

Still, the medevial sections are pretty much in the static-display category - glass cases full of stuff with captions. Interesting stuff, sometimes beautiful stuff, but basically heaps of stuff.

Last note about the medieval section - many of the halls are full of what looks like original artwork commemorating the Sun King's military victories (well, the ones his generals won for him, anyway) and others simply glorifying Louis.

The WWI & II sections are a lot more interesting and educational. This section actually starts with the 1871 Franco-Prussian war and proceeds from there to the end of WWII, covering multiple floors and many exhibit halls. (General Paris note - very few escalators and elevators. Come prepared for many, many steps.) Lots of film clips, some made of up still photo montages, many either alternating languages or with push-button activation in your language of choice.

These really try to explain the origins and courses of both conflicts, but still have lots of weapons, uniforms and equipment to bring things to life. We spent a long time in the WWI section. We were all getting a bit footsore by this point and we're going to be immersed in WWII next week, so we blew through thzg section pretty quickly - though we did stop to watch a short film about what the French seem to consider the three turning points of 1942 - El Alamein (check), Stalingrad (check), and Guadalcanal (interesting as the popular American viewpoint is that Midway was the turning point in the Pacific). Being very well versed in the American and to a lesser extent the British views on these events, it's very interesting to get a slice of the French perspective.

We wrapped the touring part of the day with a visit to Napoleon's tomb, which occupies a place of prominence beneath the golden dome of the eglise (church). Several other French military heroes including Vauban (the master of military engineering and field fortifications) and Marshal Foch (Supreme Allied Commander at the end of WWI) are entombed in satellite niches. This was one of the places I really wished to see - it's a connection with some of the grand sweep of history.

The US Army really needs a museum like this, I think.

Random Paris notes:
- If you're going to see more than three musuems, get the Paris Museum Pass. It grants you free access to dozens of sites around the city, and literally pays for itself in three stops - less counting the Lourve, I think.

- Kids under 18 are admitted to most museums free.

- Forget whatever you've heard about all French or all Parisians being rude. We've had numerous wonderful interactions with the locals, everything from taking our pictures to giving Ben access to the staff bathroom in the Metro when it was urgently needed (merci, Annabelle!) If you have even the most rudimentary bits of French - greeting people properly (Bonjour, monsiuer/madame) and saying please (si vous plat), you'll do just fine and better than you might in New York or DC.

- Steps. And more steps. And still more steps. Not a good place to be if you have mobility problems, as there's not many elevators at all and few escalators as well. My knees are OK but Michelle & I are both suffering from tender ankles at the moment.

- The French really seem to appreciate kids. The two older women sitting next to our table on Sunday burst into big smiles when the waitresses brought out Alexa's desert with sparklers, singing "Bon Anniversarie" in French to her. Ben and I were on the Quai d'Austerlitz Sunday night, returning from mailing some post-cards, and he got a chuckle and wave from a passing cyclist as he practiced his fencing advances and lunges on the path.

All for now - it's 10:45 PM Paris time (or 22:45, in the Euro mode).