The Metro just has too many steps and not enough escalators, and after using it for two days I’ve had enough and hired an e-bike to get around Paris. The crowds at this this of year are staggering, the shops and restuarants are full, the streets are crowded, and compared with Berlin, it’s intense. I visited the Quai Branly Museum on Anne’s suggestion and later the Centre Pompidou that had an exhibition on Dora Maar, Picasso’s friend and muse and an artist in her own right.
I’m lucky to be staying with French people in a house with it’s own quiet courtyard off the street and situated over the road from the Champ de Mars and the base of the Tour Eiffel, incredible. I fulfilled a long ambition to have my birthday, July 14th, in Paris. The day starts with an endless military parade; the Legionnaires carry axes instead of guns and there’s a big fly over. The evening had a magnificent classical concert and the fireworks display went on for at least half an hour and included lasers, projections and spotlights and music – it must have cost millions. Earlier in the evening Elo took me to her favourite restaurant where Obama also went, apparently, the small La Fountain de Mars – still a family restaurant. On the way home we watched the fireworks and then once home we watched the concert on TV and I saw numerous soloists and opera singers, and the amazing Khatia Buniatishvili playing Rachmaninoff. click on the link to see the performance.
Picasso’s Guernica work in progress pic taken by Dora Maar. 
