Parislog 61
September 18, 2006

The third weekend of September is the “Journées du Patrimoine”. It is now in 48 different European countries. Doors are opened on historical sites all over for the citizens to be able to visit their history. The best part is not that it is free but rather than you can go into places that are otherwise closed to the public.

I chose to go to the “PALAIS DU LUXEMBOURG-SÉNAT”, which is the house of the French Senate. I had no idea going in how immense the site was. It took A* and I over 2 hours to follow the prescribed path of discovery.

The palace was built for Marie de Medici in 1615-1620 and was later the residence of Napoleon. There was a beautiful little private chapel, very dark and heavily decorated with gold and statues. In the residential areas there were gold moldings, marble fireplaces and huge crystal chandeliers. Then you walked through the actual offices of the Directors etc. There were pieces of furniture in use from the Empire period and pieces that were bizarrely modern, computers and working materials all over showing you that this was actually a place of work. What an office! The usual highly structured French gardens were there and there was also an interior garden with tropical plants and statues. The conference hall is so golden that it is almost painful. The decoration covers every inch of the surface, walls and ceilings. It would take hours just to examine this one room. The library had a section of red bound books called “The Who’s Who of France”, title just like that in English. The senate is held in this gorgeous room.

Then it gets modern. There is a television studio and a hairdresser’s room. A huge theatre resides in the lower level as well.

Walking back, we stopped at a creperie where I found out that crepes were a regional food of Brittany. You can have salty crepes, which just means that it is a meal not a dessert. Those are made with dark flour. You can have sugar crepes, which means any form of dessert style crepe. The dinner crepe I had was folded like an envelope around the hamburger, egg, and tomato filling. The dessert crepe was banana and caramel. Sweet delight. To go with the crepes we had cider from Brittany. It was a fun meal. Of course we sat at a table outside on the sidewalk.