Today we once again woke up to the sounds of some sort of construction on the floor above us. So odd, but oh well. We went out for a “Parisian Breakfast” (coffee, croissant AND baguette with butter and jam), and then walked toward the Pompidou Museum.

The museum is a strange looking building, inside and out.

To go to the upper floors one takes the escalator which is in a large tube. I took videos, which sort of distracted me so fear wasn’t quite as bad as usual.

I braved it and went out to take a few shots, but I didn’t last for long. Fear definitely kicked back in.

I noticed the guy with the pink hair, who I spotted very early on our walk, was also at the museum.

As usual I won’t post the art here. I do take photos, actually, but they are for later: any time I see musicians or instruments in works I like to grab a photo and I’ll write about them on my oboe site when I get home. This one below is MY composition, along with the Gerhard Richter, and I’m titling it “Patty Waits For Dan”. He is much better at taking time with works of art.

After spending over five hours in the Pompidou we ambled a bit.

At one point we spotted an instrument repair and restoring shop. There were a couple of very old oboes there.

More walking.

A photographer and some others were following this guy around. For what I’ve no clue. Maybe he’s “someone”, but who knows?

Then dinner!

We began our day with some loud pounding … I think they are doing repairs at the hotel. Hm. Either that or they are trying to get us to get out and about more quickly.

We headed to the D’Orsay museum after a bit of breakfast. The walk was nice.

We had only been able to visit this museum briefly the last time we were here, so this time we spent gobs of time there. I will share just a bit from there:

After an ever so important toothpaste purchase (a challenge when there are so many choices but you can’t read the info!) we had a lovely dinner. I ordered mussels, and when our server saw me trying to eat them with my fork she taught me the French way. Maybe it’s done this way in the states too, but I sure didn’t know the trick: you remove a mussel from a shell, and then you use that shell as a tool to pinch out the other mussels.

After a quick stop at the hotel we went to a concert at an amazing church — La Sainte Chappelle. The stained glass was unbelievable … nearly the entire building seems to be of the glass. I wish we had arrived early enough for me to grab some shots when it was light out but we barely made it in time. The concert of Vivaldi’s Four Seasons was fine, but the church was better. 🙂

Then it was back to the hotel. And NO ice cream tonight. Something feels very wrong. 🤔

Flying from Vienna we never were asked for ID. Not even once! We just had our boarding pass scanned to get through. I found that odd and a bit frightening.

I continue to have Wagner ear worms.

… but not when I dream. My latest dream, though, had a soundtrack of my own creation.

This environmentally conscious hotel has plastic cups.

Now back to sleep with me!

Our flight was short and sweet.

The biggest challenge was figuring out how to get out of the underground when our RER B train arrived at our stop in Paris, but we finally managed.

We are in the tiniest of rooms, although I think the bed is larger than the one in London. Our “courtyard view” looks at the elevator shaft! Funny, don’t you think?

After a bit of sitting we headed out for dinner and a short walk.

Can you guess how the walk ended?

Yep. Again.

And now goodnight.

Today was a no-museum day. After breakfast we headed to an amazing building, thanks to Greg’s recommendation. First the walk …

… and then the amazing Postsparkasse, designed by Otto Wagner. I took a lot more photos, but I’ll leave it at these for now.

We then took a longer walk to the Danube. Sorry, no shots. I didn’t get anything worth sharing, really.

From there we walked to a very cool place for lunch called 12 Apostelkeller, again thanks to Greg. We went down three floors, I think.

But lunch really needed to be followed by coffee, so we walked to Cafe Central, a place that’s been around for something like 160 years, and a spot frequented by people such as Freud and Trotsky. Obviously coffee called for dessert as well. (The first two images are from our walk.)

By the time we finished dessert (or tried … I didn’t manage to) we were tired and so we went back to our hotel where this guy greets us every time.

Finally (whew!) we went to dinner because more food seems to be the norm. I managed to just have a salad at the Greek restaurant, so at least I don’t feel TOO stuffed. But … there was ice cream to follow. Yes, really. Before we reached that place, though, I shot a few more things.

And now goodnight. Tomorrow we fly to Paris and I should attempt sleep.

Today we walked to Belvedere, which is actually two buildings — I suppose palaces? — to see the art there. The walk was pleasant, as the weather was so comfortable, and the rain is gone.

Here is the lower mansion interior (we could only access a few rooms):

And these are from our walk to the upper mansion:

I’m not too interested in sharing photos of art, but this is from inside the upper mansion. Scott, the carvings are wood … thought you might enjoy them.

(The final image above is through a window.)

In all honesty, the trip was fun, but the museum yesterday was, for me, much more interesting and rewarding. I don’t regret going to this place, but I doubt I’d return.

From there we walked back toward our hotel, ate too much dinner and topped it off with gelato. Here are just a few images from the walk back. I think I’m taking too many iPhone pictures and need to scale this back a bit, so the phone might get a bit of rest tomorrow (emphasis on MIGHT!).

As a side note: putting up these reduced images is a wee bit clunky, and I’m not sure the quality is so great, but they definitely load more quickly.

To see if this image is smaller, as I found something that reduces size.

This is from the start of our walk today to the Belvedere Museums and grounds.

I’ll post images from Sunday. We caved and paid so I can put photos up, but meanwhile some have disappeared from the blog. I guess I have work to do, should I manage to find a way to fix the problems. Or not. We shall see!

**Update: Everything has been redone, and more images added. Covid Times mean I may as well do this stuff! (9.28.2020)

If any readers know how to fix the image size issue please do tell! I know how to resize in a post, I think, but is there some option in WordPress to have them import smaller? If I can’t fix this I’ll have to stop posting so many: this issue explains why it takes so long to upload. At least I know that much now. <— Moot point now!