Sunday Museum Day

Today was the first Sunday of the month, and all the major museums are free. Thus I set out this morning to take advantage of that as much as I could. As the French like to say, esp. to foreign visitors, "Il faut profiter" (One must profit).

I headed first to the Musee Rodin, the former residence of the sculptor and current museum. I was hesitant at first about going there, and not sure I wanted to, but I'm extremely glad I went. The museum consists of the building with the permanent collection and an enormous garden with a cafe and massive replicas of Rodin's biggest works. The permanent collection includes many Rodin pieces, as well as works from his personal collection, including a few Van Gogh and Renoir paintings. Typically I'm not one to be super-moved by art/art museums, but I really enjoyed this one and found the works incredibly moving. I could only take pictures outside, but I took a bunch.

The first one is Rodin's "The Thinker". Followed by the "Burghers of Calais". Then Balzac in a monk's robe. Then the Gates of Hell.

After the Musee Rodin, I headed along the Seine down the Left Bank to the National Museum of Assistance and Hospitality. It was a former hospital turned museum that chronicled the history of hospitals and public health aid in Paris. Unfortunately it was simply a collection of hospital-related art, and lots of old documents, and long historical posters that were tiring to read in French. I didn't stay very long there.

Although I was slightly museumed-out at that point, I walked home past the Pantheon, and since I walk by it nearly every day and entrance was free today, I decided to go in (after enjoying a sandwich on the steps for lunch).

They call the Pantheon the tomb/house of the great men, and the government decides who qualifies as a "great man" and there's a massive ceremony when someone gets "patheoned" (they even created a verb for it). The first great men were revolutionary heros, as well as Voltaire and Rousseau. In the Pantheon's crypt, there's a poster describing each man and his accomplishments and then there's the tomb, where people can put notes and flowers and whatnot (except for the really famous ones like Rousseau, which are now blocked off b/c too many people wanted to put things on them). I saw the tombs of lots of famous Francais, including Voltaire, Rousseau, Hugo, Dumas, Zola, Jaures, Jean Monnet, etc. I also saw the tomb of one woman amongst the great men, Marie Curie. My visit was surprisingly very interesting. The building itself is also amazing, and has a very cool history. Since it was built it has been used as both a national monument and a church, and French presidents have decided its use. Some declared it just a monument and national center to maintain separation of church and state, while others decided to use it as a national cathedral and mend relations with the church. That's the view from the front of the Pantheon.