Colossal Waste: Around The World 2011 Day 41: Paris, France

Yesterday we walked out of our hotel and experienced the beauty of Paris. Today, we have to change from hotel to apartment and then decide what to do for the rest of the day. There are some plans brewing.

The final breakfast at the Hotel de Crillon. I kind of wished I had known that this hotel had been the headquarters of the German High Command during World War II before we checked out. It would have been nice to note who had used this building and how things went for them.

The inner courtyard that our suite faces is beautiful, and they have seen to it that bird droppings do not become an issue. And, yes, I took several pictures until I caught the French flag flowing perfectly.

We packed up, but left our bags in our room. Today we will be checking into an Adagio City Apartmenthotel, a different option for clients that Barbie wanted to try. The plan is to walk ten minutes to our new digs, check them out, and then return and take a cab back with bags if it is acceptable. If it is unacceptable... a different hotel will be quickly booked.

We got to Adagio and it is a great little room, ideal for a traveling businessperson.

I did not take a picture of the room yet, but I did get a picture of the sign.

Walking back to the Crillon, we paid a quick visit to Le Bristol, which Barbie frequently books.

We walked back along Rue Saint-Honore, which easily compares to Beverly Hills' Rodeo Drive. (I hope you pronounce that Roe-Dee-Oh. There is no reason to pronounce it any other way.) In this expensive shopwindow there were quite a few black skulls. Cool, yes. But now that skulls are everywhere, is it safe to say that they have no edge? I would like to see a biker with a skull tattoo standing next to a Beverly Hills housewife in Juicy Couture sweats with skulls all over.

In the interest of taste, I will not use the language that jumps into my head when I see this store.

We returned to the Crillon, got our bags, and hailed a cab. For the first time, I literally held the iPhone in front of the taxi driver's face so that he could see the spot on the map where we needed to go.

Passing the Madeleine Church in the taxi. By the way, showing the taxi driver the map on the iPhone worked perfectly. He drove us directly to our new digs.

After settling into the new pad, we had some deciding to do. As in, what the heck do we do today. I read this morning online about an art piece here in Paris. It was on a tech site, and it looked interesting. I ran it by Barbie, we checked how to get there on the Metro, and off we went.

Feet on the Metro.

Now... how to say this. We went further North and East than we had traveled in Paris before. Perhaps you have heard about the suburbs of Paris with majority Muslim neighborhoods where living is quite difficult? We ended up probably closer to that than planned. It was a semi-uncomfortable walk from the Metro to the exhibit.

Centsquare, our destination.

Son of a !!!! It is closed on Mondays. Big oops. Not only did we come to a bad neighborhood, but we did it on a day when we could not even see what we came to see.

This is as close as we got to WasteLandscape. Yes, WasteLandscape. Do you see why we had to try to come? French artist Elise Morin and architect Clémence Eliard created this art installation from 65,000 discarded CD's. The 65,000 CDs were collected, sorted and then sewn together by hand to create an undulating and reflective surface.

I believe the following picture will be the first I show in this year's Waste not taken by my camera. Here is the image that brought us here.

WasteLandscape. Image ©Martin Eliard

I would have loved to balance the pictures of 3,300 year old obelisks with a brand new art installation, but it was not to be.

Back to the Metro. Let us get out of here.

I am going to have to do some research and find out why a Metro stop in Paris is named Stalingrad. Considering that the former Russian city has changed its name, why would a place is Paris be named after a mass murderer? It turns our that this stop is at Place de Stalingrad, named after the Battle of Stalingrad which was a decisive defeat for the Nazis. So... the French wanted to honor the men who gave their lives to defeat Hitler, which I can respect in principle, but there has got to be a way to stop honoring one of the worst murderers in history. I mean, the Russians had the good sense to remove his name from the city during the Soviet era.

And, for the record, I just looked it up and the Russian city's name was Tsaritsyn from 1589–1925, then Stalingrad from 1925–1961, and since 1961 has been Volgograd. First named after the Tsars, then after Stalin, and now, finally, after the Volga river it sits beside.

Our next goal is to visit the Pantheon of Paris. the mausoleum for distinguished French citizens. Like Napoleon's tomb, it is another site in Paris we have never seen during our many visits to this city. But first... hunger.

Breakfast In America. That is the name of the restaurant. In truth, we originally sat down in a French bistro after looking at the menu outside. But when the proprietor handed us menus that featured higher prices than the menu in the window, we stood up and walked out. When we came across this American-style diner, we could not resist it.

It turns out that this restaurant's history is quite similar to the Hard Rock Cafe. Founder Craig Carlson loved everything about Paris except for the fact that he could not get an American breakfast, and in response opened this restaurant in 2003. Most of the employees are North American, and hearing English without a French accent was almost jarring.

I got a BBQ chicken breast sandwich. And, believe it or not, I did not eat any of those fries. For the record, it was perfect.

Barbie enjoyed an American burger.

The food is great. The buns were unlike we have had anywhere in Europe. It made us think that the owner imports buns from the states.

Time for the Pantheon of Paris. Almost...

A photo opportunity that could not be ignored.

Can you dig it?

Okay. Now it is really time for the Pantheon. Of Paris. I keep adding that, because if you ever read the Waste you know that the Pantheon of Rome is one of my favorite buildings in the world. The idea that Paris has named a building The Pantheon, when they really could have chosen a similar term, is something I am struggling to accept.

This is a whole lot bigger than the 2,000 year old Pantheon in Rome. The story here is as follows:

King Louis XV got very, very sick in 1744 and vowed that if he recovered he would replace the ruined church of the Abbey of St Genevieve with a new church worthy of the patron saint of Paris. He recovered, and soon design and construction began on a new St. Genevieve. There were money problems in France at the time, and this delayed completion of the project. The church was finally completed in 1790, a year after the French Revolution began. It was decided that this massive building would be changed from a church into a mausoleum.

And after this morning's mishap, we got lucky. As we were purchasing our entry tickets, a woman stepped in front of us to tape a sign to the seller's window about tours up to the top for panoramic views of Paris. We had no idea, but we followed her over and walked right to the stairs that lead upwards. Other people had stood in line for up to forty minutes, but our timing was perfect.

From the higher level, you see what an amazing cathedral this would have been had it remained St. Genevieve's.

The size and scale of this place is immense. However, I will just say it; it is not a competition, but the Pantheon of Rome is a marvel of excellence while the Pantheon of Paris is simply a huge church.

But we could not be more excited about climbing the stairs to the top of the rotunda.

How is that for a view?

The Pantheon clearly provides one of the greatest views in Paris.

This is the same shot, but cropped. I keep telling you, "A crop is a zoom." (And the gold dome is Napoleon's tomb.)

Notre Dame Cathedral.

The raw shot of the Sacré-Coeur on Montmartre.

The crop.

I included this one because that cloud is clearly an alien spaceship sent to study this city and report back how to best overtake it.

First, we took this self-portrait using the iPhone's forward facing camera. But as we did it a nice young man we met who was also from Los Angeles offered to help us out. We normally say no, because we like how the self taken photos come out, but since he was nice we said yes.

Jeff and Barbie atop Paris's Pantheon. (Guest photographer Rajay Kumar, Ph.D.)

Coming back down, I was again taken aback by the size of this building.

The rotunda from the outer roof.

Back inside, I shot this animation of the pendulum that tells you the time of day. I fear that this size is a bit hard to follow, but look for the gold ball moving back and forth.

Did I mention this building is huge? It is just so... huge. They could have named it Le Grande Mausoleum and then nobody would ever say, "Beautiful building, and massive, but it lacks the architectural balance of ancient Rome's Pantheon.

Remember the other day when I said that you are required to take a photograph of the Eiffel Tower nine out of every ten times that you spot it?

This is a crop of the above photograph.

Only the front is reminiscent of Rome's Pantheon, as both Pantheons feature a portico inspired by classical Greek architecture. And by inspired, one might say borrowed.