Some badass chicks at the Moulin Rouge

I finally made it to the Moulin Rouge - I think it's one of the things you need to do once in your life. Not sure I would go back but glad I saw it.

The evening started with a little dinner in Montmatre.

And then it was off to the big show! Of course you can't take photos once the show starts but if you're quick enough you can snap a few before they tell you to put your phone away.

A weekend in Fountainebleau

When you have visitors in town for a long period of town, it's an imperative to leave the crazy city of Paris for a while. This time it was off to Fountainebleau. Again, I've already done a post about the chateau so this won't be long. In good news we got one day of sun so I finally got to walk the gardens! The town is cute and I have to say, I had some of the best French food I've had in a while there. 

Saturday was total crap weather so it was a good thing we had a tour of the chateau booked. Since this tour was offered by the Chateau, I got to see one part of it that I hadn't seen last time. The room is rented out for functions normally. It's nothing super impressive but at least it was new! One cool part was that part of my office was a part of the map painted on the wall - I guess that's what happens when you have a Chateau as part of your office!

 And then a beautiful Sunday stroll in the gardens . . .

Palais de Tokyo

The big debate for the next day was what to do given the weather was completely miserable. The selection was a number of museums and my request was one I hadn't been to before - Palais de Tokyo won.

This museum is modern and contemporary art which is almost exclusively rotating exhibitions. This is not my favourite type of art but the installations that were there when we went were pretty cool. 

We headed to the basement first where we found the following:

I have to say this is the best art in the place, how can you not agree with me? 

Peguins - enough said

We took a petite pause for some lunch in this retro cafe that included a shoe/nylon installation that was quite popular with people taking photos.

When then moved the first level that had two sections, one with rotating tableaus which was quite neat. The other was set up as a crime scene - each exhibit was part of the crime. It was definitely something I had never seen before.

Then the crime scene . . .

La Chapelle

Next set of visitors arrived shortly there after - my mom and godmother. Unfortunately for them they arrived during some of the worst weather Paris has seen for spring in a long time. I'm convinced it's me because Ottawa seems to be having WAY better weather since I left - your welcome.

The first weekend they were here we headed to one place I had never been, Sainte-Chapelle. La Chapelle is a royal chapel in the Gothic style, within the medieval Palais de la Cité, the residence of the Kings of France until the 14th century, on the Île de la Cité in the heart of Paris, France. Commissioned by Louis IX, it was consecrated on 26 April 1248. You can only visit the Chapelle part at this time.

When we entered the building I wasn't all that impressed . . .

And then we walked upstairs . . .

The windows represent different scenes from the bible. The stain glass is absolutely incredible.

Since we were in the area we headed off to Notre Dame.

The plan following this was to venture on to jardin des plantes but due to the my inability to follow a map (and yes I have heard of GPS) we ended up at the Luxembourg gardens. Since I've already done a post about them I will just add this one photo which weren't part of the original post.

A blast from the past

A former colleague of mine was here for meetings for a couple of days and since he is an avid reader of the blog, I thought that Chan#2 deserved a shout out. It was great seeing him and showing him a city he had never been to before.

Chan #2 in front of the iconic towe

 I didn't really take photos but here was one of the dinners . . .

It was a short visit but a good one, or so I am saying on his behalf :-P