The last day of our Museum Pass was last Monday, when the Louvre and some other museums are closed. We opted to stay away from Musée d'Orsay, which is busy on an average day, and head to Musée de l'Armée at Les Invalides. This building was comissioned by Louis XIV in 1670.
It is as impressive a building as any we have seen. We especially liked the adornments for the dormer windows in the roof which made them look like knights clad in armour.
Musée de l'Armée is actually a building housing numerous separate museums and Napoleon's tomb. We checked out the area devoted to Arms and Armour.
This sculpted head was on the end of a cannon.
Next we went to see Le Tombeau de Napoléon which was underneath the gold dome of L'Église du Dôme. It was a massive building with the most gorgeous ornamentation. The tomb itself was built in the 1840's when Napoleon's body was returned to France. He was laid to rest in the tomb in 1861, inside 6 coffins like a Russian doll. In the Musée de l'Armée we had seen Napoleon's stuffed horse, so we had our human and animal remains quota filled for the day.
We also took a peek inside the chapel where flags captured by the French during battles throughout history are hung. These are some old flags!
After overdosing on war history, we took a bit of a walk over to Le Bon Marché, capturing some typical Parisian sights on the way, such as the girl on a bike without a helmet talking on a cell phone, and the impressive façade of some anonymous Haussmann-era building.
We loved this car. And, yes, those bumpers (actually boat bumpers tied on with rope) are very necessary here in Paris where they park by feel in spaces which we would never consider squeezing a car into!
We quite enjoyed La Grande Epicerie at Le Bon Marché - a whole floor devoted to food in the swanky Grand Magasin. Instead of buying anything from Prada, Chanel, or Dior in the clothing part of the store, we grabbed a baguette, cheese and salad for lunch in the sunken garden park at the end of rue Récamier.
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