Tuesday, October 19, 2010

Rue de Rivoli

Spent quite a bit more time on Rue de Rivoli today than I had originally planned. I thought I would try to see the Basquiat Exhibition at the Musée de Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris – had a rather disappointing visit to lots of empty and closed galleries last week while they were installing the show, which is such a shame as I had such great memories of previous visits to their not inconsiderable collection (including the always haunting Boltanski installation, amongst many other works worth seeing).

However, I dawdled getting there and the queue was round the block by the time I arrived and it wasn’t much of a day for standing in the cold and rain. So I found myself walking back along the Rue de Rivoli, which I usually avoid if I can possibly can, as it is full of tourists on their way to and from and all around the Louvre.


Later I found myself on the very same street, on the very same bus route stuck in an almighty Paris-style traffic jam – the sort that I’ve heard about but haven’t experienced until today. When we eventually crawled through the Place de la Concorde, I alighted to find that the Pont Alexandre III closed and a seriously impressive display of police vans lining the quayside in front of the prefecture, blue lights ablaze, sirens wailing through the night. None of the Parisians at my class was the slightest bit bothered.

Needless to say, there has been another day of manifs against the pension reforms in Paris today – notably, many of the high schools were closed and there were police guarding the lycée opposite the Cité. Although I am delighted to see people out on the streets expressing themselves so vociferously and I am fascinated to see how this will play out for Sarkozy, selfishly, I have my fingers crossed that the cross-channel trains will be working tomorrow for my final trip to London and I’ll be keeping a close eye on the the international flight situation for my home-bound departure next week….

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