Day 5--The Marais

For those of you who don't know Paris well, the Marais is a very particular quartier. The word "marais" literally means "swamp," because when Paris was first settled, that's what it was. Throughout the years it has been the Jewish ghetto and a hip spot in the 1600s for wealthy people to build mansions. Now it is the Jewish, gay, and VERY hip quarter--as they say in French, it is "un mélange." It is also where my family stayed when we visited Paris four years ago, and where my parents stayed last week, so it has a special place in my heart.

Today I went back to the Marais to check out two museums and two churches I hadn't been to yet. First was Musée Carnavalet, housed in an old hôtel (mansion). It's a museum of the history of Paris, and there are lots of rooms recreated from different periods in Paris's history. Here are some of the prettier ones (couldn't resist the harp shots):



I must admit, the whole ordeal was a bit of a race to get to the Art Nouveau rooms. True to form, they didn't disappoint. My pictures don't really do it justice, but here was a room for a jewelry store, 100% Art Nouveau:





Afterwards, I went to the Musée Cognacq-Jay, also housed in an hôtel in the Marais. It was a rich couple's personal collection in the early 1900s, kept as they displayed it in the hôtel when they lived there! It was cool, although fairly modest compared to some of the stuff I've been seeing.

Before returning from my venture, I looked in St. Paul and St. Gervais. St. Paul is a dramatic Jesuit church with chandaliers on the inside! Here are a couple of pics:


St. Gervais is much more standard Gothic style, but it had some pretty cool modern stained glass windows:


With travel still messed up across Europe, I'm feeling pretty good about my decision to stay in Paris.