henry's letters: day 4 paris and versailles

trip day 4 paris

This was a very busy day for us. We got up (relatively) early to see the Musee des Arts et Metiers on Jacob's recommendation (http://arts-et-metiers.net/ ,

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Musee_des_Arts_et_Metiers). A museum filled with scientific and technical equipment from the last 500 years? Clocks, barometers, meter sticks, volume measurement? Lavoisier's original chemical laboratory? Pascal's computer, and advances up to the Cray? Old airplanes cars, telephones, typewriters? A model of the Statue of Liberty? Could any red-blooded Brown male resist this allure? In any case, we walked about a mile directly north of our hotel, passing the habitation of Abelard and Heloise ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Abelard , http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/H%C3%A9lo%C3%AFse_d'Argenteuil on the Ile St Louis, Paris City Hall, and the back end of the Pompidou center. We got a couple of pastries to eat on the way, but didn't think to get any water, which sorely affected Cindy and Jasper, as we couldn't find a drinking fountain in the museum later.

Before we went through the museum, we visited the priory of St Martin des Champs, home of the original museum (a much larger addition was built about 25 years ago). The priory contains either the original or a copy of Foucault's pendulum (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foucault_pendulum) , which once hung in the Pantheon. The cord either broke at the Pantheon or here at the museum, damaging the floor. This pendulum is famous in physics, because it demonstrates the rotation of the earth (the pendulum swings in a line from its fixed point on the ceiling, and the earth rotates around it, giving the impression that the pendulum rotates in a big circle over the course of 24 hours (at the poles), or longer elsewhere.

Of course, this particular pendulum was made even more famous by the eponymous novel by Umberto Eco (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foucault's_Pendulum). The plot of this book is complex and conspiratorial, and the climactic scene happens right there - - and the museum makes the most of this free publicity. It's a good book to read once (much better than the pap Dan Brown, [an Exonian I'm sorry to say] has written, but perhaps not as good as the Club Dumas by Arturo Perez-Reverte (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Club_Dumas), one of my favorite novels of all time (and I think the movie (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Ninth_Gate) with Jonny Depp isn't that bad either).

The museum starts at the top floor, where you first see instruments of timekeeping, including a replica of the ancient Greek antikythera mechanism (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antikythera_mechanism), who will show up again later on our travels. From scientific instruments one proceeds through areas devoted to materials and materials research, construction (including mock ups and movies of bridge construction and tunnel borers), communication devices (with an interesting demonstration on how the speed of light was measured something else Foucault was famous for http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fizeau%E2%80%93Foucault_apparatus) , energy, mechanical equipment, and transportation equipment. It was a good way to spend about two hours; if you weren't time pressed (and you were without rambunctious or bored children) four hours would give you a very adequate idea of everything the museum has on display.

After the museum we had lunch at a cafe just outside, and then we went back to our hotel to await a van pick-up for a tour of Versailles. The pick-up was a bit late, which did not matter, as we had timed tickets for entrance, and Versailles is only about a 30 minute drive from Paris. Also with us in the van was a couple from Australia (he was a chemical engineer here for a conference and she was a vice-principle in an elementary school), and a Brazilian couple from Sao Paolo (Portuguese speakers only). Our van driver drove us along the Champs Elysee to the highway, pointing out a few landmarks. The Champs was built as the main highway to Versailles by Louis XIV. Versailles was originally a 'hunting lodge' by his immediate predecessor, Louis XIII. Versailles at the time was a country village, now it is inhabited by wealthy Parisians. At the front of the palace we were met by our tour guide who handed us headsets. This way she was able to communicate with us during the tour. The Palace is very crowded, mostly with Chinese tourists. We were there in the afternoon, which is less busy, but also gives you less opportunity to see the entirety of the palace and its grounds.

Well, there are some pictures below of Versailles. I had been there before. There is not much you can say about a palace constructed by an absolute monarch who had the resources of a rich country the size of Texas at his command. There is a lot of shiny expensive stuff. It seems so stuffy to me, especially the gardens.

We got back into the van after wandering through the sterile gardens (and having some soft ice cream), and drove back into Paris, seeing another Statue of Liberty along the Seine. Then we met Hannah at the Brasserie Balzar (http://www.brasseriebalzar.com/en/), a traditional french bistro near our hotel. I had the steak tartar (delicious!), while Cindy and Hannah had steak au poivre and Jasper had roasted chicken.