DAY 7 - THU 3/7 - Pompidou Museum (Beaubourg)

We start out the day with our 7:30am alarm, as we are determined to get to the Beaubourg before it opens at 11am so that we can avoid the long waiting lines like yesterday. Marty does some household duties, and off we go on the Metro. We think we remember which exit to use from the huge Les Halles station near the museum, but it is such an underground labyrinth of corridors, stairs, escalators, and signs that we take an exit that is further away than we expected. Oh well, sets us back a few minutes, but we finally make it to the immense Place in front of the museum at about 10am, only to find 2 long queues already forming, one for ticket holders and one for ticket buyers like us. We stand in that line, all very civilized like the French are (not like the Italians who would be standing as many abreast as could squeeze in).

          

At precisely 11am, after standing in line for one hour, special groups are allowed to go in first, then this now immensely long snaking line of ticket holders slowly proceeds in, and finally our line starts to move. We're so ready, and up the escalator we go, hugging the outside of this factory-like building till we get to the very top floor and the Dali exhibit. The sights are amazing, the higher up you go...the huge square below, and the roof tops of Paris, including Notre Dame Cathedral, Saint Chapelle Church steeple, the Eiffel Tower, and far off in the distance, the Sacre Coeur Church up on the highest hill of the city. It's all stunning and exciting to see despite the typical drizzly Paris weather.

Finally we're in the main exhibit area of this crazy, surrealist, genius painter Salvador Dali. He was an extremely prolific painter, and the descriptive information (French & English) was well done so that you could begin to appreciate what he was painting. 

                                                    

In one room was a 3-dimentional replica of his painting of Mae West, with a seat made in the shape of his signature red lips, which you could actually sit on and take a picture with yourselves in the picture...if you look closely below you will see us. 

It was 12 deep everywhere, but if you were patient you could finally get up close to see the details of each work of art.  Dali was really a master artiste!  It was worth the wait. 

Marty reminded me that he once actually met Dali around 1970, walking along the Champs Élysées (you couldn't help but recognize him, Dali that is!), strolling with a walking stick in one hand and a beautiful blonde bombshell in the other...that was pretty exciting and memorable! 

Now it was about 1:30pm and we were exhausted, so we decided to have lunch. We checked out the gourmet restaurant in the museum, with some stunning hostesses at the entrance to greet you (see picture), but thought it was too over the top for a light lunch, so we went out to the street to find a nice Cafe. 

Along the way we saw a "House of Hoops" store which intrigued us, since we have a connection to the NBA. We went in and took a few pictures of their wares, and of course they said we couldn't take photos. We then chatted up this huge basketball-player looking guy who worked there and told him our connection to the NBA, and so he said of course we could take all the photos we wanted to. He said he almost made it to the NBA, but did play for French and Italian teams. Marty then showed him a picture of Deana, our daughter, doing a Kraft promotion event with several famous sports figures, including Shaq, and this big guy got such a kick out of that (see picture).

Then, after a lovely lunch, we went back to the museum and saw the other special exhibit of Eileen Gray, a famous decorative artist, architect, and furniture designer, as well as their permanent collection of modern art. It was refreshing to see different works of some of our favorite modern artists like Picasso, Matisse, Kandinsky and Miro which we were not familiar with.

By then we had spent many hours on our feet in the museum and we were really pooped, too pooped in fact to even think about going out for dinner. So we left the museum, passing a modernized pisoir, now for both men and women (which have replaced the classic old open ones that were sexist and only for men). Then back we went to the Epicerie at Bon Marche to buy some delicious appetizers similar to those of last night, and dine again chez nous.