January 15, 2019               Bibliothèque Nationale de France – BnF

We were admitted to the reading room at about 10:00.  The room is huge and beautiful, and there were many people at the tables.  I’m assuming that these people were actual scholars, not that we aren’t.  We explained to the lady at the information desk our mission.  She at first wanted us to see the painting on the computer.  I explained that we had viewed the painting on the BnF web site.  For our purposes we need to actually see the painting in person.  She directed us to the Research Desk.  I gave the inventory to the young lady at the desk, and once again explained our mission.  She explained that it would take about 45 minutes to retrieve the document.  I walked around and took a few more photos of the room.  A book showed up that contained the painting.  There were about 50 pages with one painting on each page.  Our painting was about 21 pages in.  I took a few photos, thanked the young lady, and we were off to visit the Montparnasse Cemetery. 

Sue had checked it out and there a number of famous people buried there.  Google got us there.  The entrance we used did not have the plastic covered map that identified where the famous graves are located.  We didn’t realize that we were missing this map until we saw other people using them.  We found a sign with a photo of the cemetery and the famous grave locations.  So I took a photo and made a list of the graves we would like to visit.  We didn’t have much luck finding a grave that was shown to be close to the sign.  We have experienced this problem at other cemeteries.  So we found one grave and called it a day.  We will have to go back another time. 

We were then off to the Musée du quai Branly – Jacques Chirac.  This is a museum featuring the indigenous art and cultures of Africa, Asia, Oceania, and the Americas.  The Branly has nine guides in nine different languages, but not one in English.  It isn’t that they were out of the English guides, we asked and the lady at the ticket desk if there was and English guide, she immediately said no.  This gave us a bad vibe.  We started to walk through the museum, and the exhibits didn’t have many descriptions in English.  The problem with a museum of culture is you need to have some idea of the use or purpose of the artifacts.  The use or purpose of some items are obvious, a drum or flute makes music.  But is it for religious purposed, or magic spells?  We saw some neat pieces, masks, figures, weapons, etc.  We gave up after a short time and went back to the hotel.

Later on our walk to the Bier Academy for dinner we came across a stuffed boar on the side walk.  It was in front of a gourmet food store.  The two young guys in the store lured us in with an offer of a taste of an after dinner liquor.  If we were staying longer we probably would have bought something.  But we weren’t so we didn’t.  We had another great dinner at the Academy.  We of course stopped at our neighborhood bar for a nightcap.  

January 15th Bibliothèque Nationale de France – BnF