Cultural Activities

It seems like there is always some sort of cultural activity going on here in Paris. It is the City of Light and the French are proud of their "joie de vivre" which includes many performances that will enhance your intellectual or cultural advancement. (Even if you don't want to be culturally advanced..).


The other day we went to the Musee Carnavalet which is the museum of the City of Paris. This museum traces the history of Paris through paintings as it shows Paris as the pastoral landscape it once was, to the evolving city that became the fashion capital of Europe, through the French Revolution and into the post revolution under Napoleon. (The painting of Marie Antoinette being guillotined is particularly impressive.)



There was also an exhibit of the saving of the Marais. Under the minister of culture, Andre Malraux, a new law was put in place in the late 60's to protect existing old or historic buildings and monuments from being destroyed due to urban development. This became Maraux's Law and it saved many of the important structures in the Marais as well as all over Paris.





So, continuing our cultural advancement...

4 of our nieces (Jackie, Kaleigh, Kelsey and Becky) arrived saturday morning for a week's vacation in Paris, They rented an apartment near us. They were pretty jet lagged, but to keep them from falling asleep, we took them to another interesting cultural activity, an evening organ recital at the Cathedral de Notre Dame.

Periodically they have well known organists from all over the world come to the church to test their chops on the huge antique organ. The sound coming from the organ was amazing. Unfortunately for us, it was just a matter of a bunch of sounds, really. We couldn't make out any melody. It was mostly short and long blasts. I had no idea where the organist was in the program but I was pretty surprised when, at the end of one particular series of notes, some members of the audience started to applaud. I guess they knew what was going on. That was the end. Despite our lack of knowledge of what was being "played", it was something to experience in that environment.

You can make out the organist behind the railing in the balcony.