Bois de Vincennes

This morning we took the Metro out to the Paris suburbs to the Bois de Vincennes. We've had such beautiful weather that we have decided to see as many parks and gardens as we can squeeze in this week, knowing that we are living on borrowed time as far as the weather is concerned. The Bois de Vincennes is less a park than vast acres of woodland with a number of highlights scattered around it, including various gardens, a zoo (closed for renovation), a hippodrome (horse-racing track), a velodrome (bicycle-racing track), and the Château de Vincennes.

We spent most of the morning in the English garden around Lac Dausmesnil, a remarkably pastoral spot with swans and peafowl, ancient trees and mysterious islands, and a faux ruin and grotto called the temple of love.

Intending to look at the château and then head back to our apartment for lunch, we wandered into the parc floral looking for a restroom and lost ourselves there for a couple of hours. By this time we were starving, so we stopped at their little cafe and had delicious bruschetta (Evelyn had ham and mushrooms, I had chicken and roquefort). I've learned that in France if you are still hungry when you are done eating, you didn't eat enough fries. Makes an Idaho boy feel right at home.

By this time it was getting late, so we saved the château for another day and headed home. This evening we toddled over to the Louvre again. On Wednesdays and Fridays it's open in the evenings, and the crowds are noticeably smaller. It was about 7:30, and I got some nice pictures of the sunset over  the Seine and over the Louvre Pyramid.

In the museum we visited the Spanish collection, the Rembrandt room, and Rubens' Marie de Medici series. Marie was a  Florentine girl who came to Paris to be the bride of Henri IV in 1600. Rubens treated the occasion as an event of mythological proportions—an entire gallery in the Louvre is dedicated to the colossal canvasses. It is one of the rare occasions when art and propaganda have had a happy marriage.