Friday Mixed Bag 8-14-15

There was a brocante fair today down on the quai below the Pont Alexandre III bridge, which we wanted to see so we jumped on the bus and rode down to the Eastern end of the Champs Elysee and had a 10 minute walk over to the site.  I think Pont Alexendre III is the most exuberant bridge in Paris, built for the Paris World Exhibition of 1900 in honor of Czar Alexender II of Russia, it is over the top with gilded decoration and ornamentation.

We walked through the brocante and enjoyed seeing the "stuff".  As always it's fun to see what Parisian dealers think will entice their customers to buy, and we always find things that would be fun to have, but only if we had a place here to put them in.




After our visit I really needed "the facilities" so we went across the street to the Petit Palais where there are toilets.  The Petit Palais along with the Grand Palais were also built for the World Exposition of 1900 so basically they are and architectural troika.

The Petit Palais houses another art musuem, Musée des Beaux-Arts de la Ville de Paris, while the Grand Palais has several spaces where they present temporary exhibitions. We had lunch in the cafe located in the courtyard of the building and afterwards continued our exploration of the holdings. Up to now we have seen mainly the ground floor and a bit of the lower floor connected to a special show, so today we worked our way through a much larger portion of the lower floor.


It begins with Greek and Roman and goes up through the early 20th century, we had no idea that it was so comprehensive. A planned hour's visit turned into many hours of interest and enjoyment. We ended our day here and got caught in one of the brief rain squalls that come through this time of year. We used a combination of Metro (which was packed) and bus to get home.