Paris, Jan 10

In the morning we went to St. Chapelle - the palatine chapel built in 13th century by Louis IX to house the relics of Christ.






Then we decided to go to Picasso Museum. Here is the picture of me taking a picture outside of museum. Since this museum is rather strange I will tell you a story about another exposition of Picasso in Musee D'Orsay.







Picasso always wanted to be a painter, but unfortunately he knew he could not paint. In 1932 he went to Musee D'Orsay to see the painting of Manet "Breakfast on the Grass" and thought:"Why couldn't I paint better than Manet?". Well, he thought like this for twenty years and finally in 1954 he presented the first version of his "Breakfast on the Grass". Picasso liked what he painted and he thought:"I am so much better! I need to paint another version!". And so he did and he painted another variation, then another and he went on for almost 15 years painting nothing, but "Breakfast on the Grass". You can read more at Musee D'Orsay website.

Pablo Picasso (1881-1973)
Le déjeuner sur l'herbe after Manet27 February 1960
Oil on canvas
London, Nahmad Gallery
© Succession Picasso, 2008

On the way back from the museum we ran into policemen in protective gear and many police cars, including a water cannon. The short exchange with them revealed that they expected a manifestation in support of Gaza. Since the previous manifestation resulted in vandalized shops and burnt cars, we immediately retired to the Metro and went back to the hotel.






Later that day we went to Eiffel Tower. We wanted to go the top (300 m), but only the first two levels were opened. We took some pictures and decided to come again tomorrow. Around Eiffel Tower there were a lot of street vendors selling mostly models of the tower for 1 euro. One, er, African-French guy overheard that we spoke Russian and tried to get our attention:"Земляк, купи! (Fellow-townsman, buy!)". The last time somebody called me Zemlyak was in 1984 when I spent a month in the Soviet Army. My reply was rather muted. It turned out Dan did not know the word Zemlyak and I did not plan to teach him the details of Russian slang.