Bookworm in Paris #5

Bonjour all my bookworms!

How are you all?

I’m sorry I haven’t done an update in the last two weeks but here in Paris it was the school holidays (or les vacances as they say here) and I decided I would do an update on the two weeks all together here.

So what have I been up to in the last two weeks?

Well, when I last did a update the children had just broken up from school and I was ready for a long holiday while they were away, but Sunday evening my au pair mother asked if I could look after the kids on Monday while they were home all day. Well I didn’t mind and I had nothing else planned, so off I went. She said if they wanted they could go out in the afternoon and visit a museum or the like. By almost unanimous decision the kids decided to go to the Musée de l’armée which is housed in Les Invalides.

If you haven’t heard about Les Invalides then I recommend reading the Wikipedia page but I shall provide a brief history here. Les Invalides (or Hôtel des Invalides to give it it’s full name) is huge series of buildings that house a museum, a hospital and a retirement home for war veterans. The latter was the buildings original purpose. The building began 1670 and was completed in 1676. The Dôme des Invalides is one of two churches built in the complex, though it is no longer used as a church. It is the tallest church in Paris at 106 metres and it houses the tomb of Napoleon Bonaparte, as well as others.

Ariel view of Les Invalides (from Wikipedia)

The children picked out three things they wanted to visit in our short hours but the first on the list was the Louis XIV – Napoleon exhibition. It was an interesting exhibit but they probably learned more from it than I did. Next was Napoleon’s tomb in the Dôme des Invalides which is at the very back of the building, in fact it is the large gold dome that you can see in the picture above, and the only way to get to it is to go outside and of course between entering the museum and going to the dome it had started to rain really heavy. We got drenched in just those few metres to the entrance to the church. After that we had about 40 minutes till the museum closed but the kids really wanted to go and see the two world wars exhibition which was really interesting to see.

I insisted we get the bs home because by that point we were all tired though one of the kids wanted to walk back.

Tuesday I was with the kids as well and I was helping them pack for their journey to the countryside that evening.

Somehow they still managed to forget things.

The rest of the two weeks was spent walking around paris and enjoying the sights and the views. I tried to go and visit the Louvre on the Friday but I was a bit late going out and when I arrived the queue was really long so I didn’t end up staying an instead headed to my new favourite bookshop. Librarie Galignani. It was founded in 1800 as a circulating library and bookshop. It is older than even the earliest Shakespeare and Company (1919) and the first to provide English literature in Paris. English literature is still very expensive to buy in France but I enjoy browsing the shelves.

My only other notable events of the past two weeks is my trip to the Jardin Des Plantes. They have an exhibions there at the moment called Mille et un Orchidées (A thousand and one orchids). It was a great day out and if you are in Paris before it finishes on the 2nd March (not long, I know) it is worth a visit. I had the reduced tarif because of my age which was still €5 (full tarif €7) but I had a good time inside. I’m not sure it was worth the €5 for how long I spent in there and how long I had to queue but it was a brilliant experience nonetheless and I got some good photos.