Another fancy Metro stop -- this one newer than art nouveau.
Cour d'Honneur ("court of honor") of the Palais Royal.
The columns vary in height from painted-on-the-pavement to several feet high.
This makes an excellent obstacle course for little kids on wheels.
Excellent metal work on the outside of a building.
Another passage. I like all the repeating shapes, especially the lights.
Garden.
This is le Bourse de Commerce (the commodities market).
The greenish pyramids just visible above the grass, left edge (middle) are the tops of the pyramids in the garden above.
The Centre Pompidou, which houses art from the end of the 20th century.
Looking just right of the above; ventilation for the Centre Pompidou.
Walking toward la Rue des Rosiers....
It was the fancy brick and the mosaic that caught my eye. Then I read it. "Municipal baths and showers." It's good to be clean......
Another 2008 favorite.
Their falafel is, indeed, excellent.
After lunch we split up, as I wanted to head back toward the hotel, and my daughter wanted to do some more book shopping.
She told me which metro stop to go to, and which line to take back to la Place de la Nation.
I strolled in that direction, looking at this and that.
When I got to the Metro stop, I discovered it was closed. The gate was locked across the entry.
I heard someone say that maybe there had been an accident.
The closest stop on the same line was closer to downtown, so I walked in that direction, but didn't find it. And it occurred to me that if there was an accident, I should be walking in the direction I wanted to go, rather than in the opposite direction (so I might get past the point of the problem).
So I walked back up, and found an open stop, and got on a (very crowded) train, and got back to la Place de la Nation with no trouble.
I thought it was a bit odd, that a stop would be closed on a Tuesday afternoon, and the train I took was WAY more crowded than any other I'd been on, this trip, but I mentally shrugged. I'm a foreigner, what do I know from how the Metro works usually?
I got back to the hotel, no problem, and took a nap.
Little did I know -- I'd been exposed to the edge of the grève.
La grève (the strike) was definitely the reason for the crowded trains. We learned later that, on some lines, one train in 4 was running. I don't know if that's why the first Metro stop was closed altogether, but I wouldn't be surprised.
Apparently strikes in France are planned and publicized, and people who read newspapers or watch the news on tv know all about it and can plan accordingly.
Foreigners who watch Mot de Passe rather than the news ... not so well informed.
Thank goodness for the netbook! It let us look up stuff whenever we were in the hotel, and made it possible for us to learn what was up, in re the grève.
We learned that people were incensed at the government's proposal to raise the age of retirement from 60 to 62. (This is, apparently, one of the lowest retirement ages in the European Union, with most being more like 65. But -- having ... less ... of anything than one expects is always aggravating.......)
But I'm getting ahead of myself. At this point, I am blissfully unaware that anything large and organized was happening.
See my daughter's take on this day here, and here (with video of the strikers filling streets to impassability).
In order to facilitate chronological traverse of these posts, here is a link to the post that comes after this one.
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