Last Weekend

August 6th, 2018

Our last weekend was spent doing a mix of moving-related activities with a few fun things thrown in.  On Saturday, we visited the recently renovated and reopened Musée de Cluny near our apartment.  We had been before---this is a museum which is housed in a combination of the frigidarium of a two-millennium-old large Roman bathhouse and a 14th Century abbey.  This time we took a guided tour of the lower level of the Roman Gallo baths---an area not typically open to the public---and learned a bit about the history of Paris as well as the history of the site and the museum itself.  Here is an interesting confluence of two architectures from more than a millennium apart:  Roman walls in brick and stone with a classic arch overlaid with the Gothic ogival, or pointed arch, added at the time of the Cluny Monks.  

And here is a photo of the underground passages below the Frigidarium.

As you may know, the name Paris comes from the Gallic tribe, the Parisii, who lived in the area when the Romans arrived 2000 years ago.  The Romans dubbed the city Lutetia, although used forms of the tribal name as adjectives.  The city was renamed Paris in 360 AD.  Here is the first known written reference to Paris, carved into a stone during the Roman period and unearthed near the site of Notre Dame in 1711.

We also saw the famous unicorn tapestries.  (I guess both New York and Scotland also claim very famous unicorn tapestries.  Not sure which are the most famous.)  I'm not what you'd call a huge unicorn aficionado, but I liked the tapestries pretty well.  Here are a few details.  (It may not come as a surprise to you that I love the depiction of the tapestry garments in tapestry in the third photo.)

We saw the Mama Mia sequel in our neighborhood movie theater on Saturday night and had one last dinner at Semilla on Sunday night as welcome breaks from the packing, organizing, donating, shipping, and cleaning.