Paris – Day 2

Day 2 Itinerary: Sainte-Chapelle, Notre Dame, Centre Pompidou, Musée Cluny, Panthéon

We got a reasonably early start on the morning of our second day in Paris and took a Metro/RER combination trip to Sainte-Chapelle. We got there just after it opened so it was quieter than Mom had seen it previously. The stained glass was absolutely amazing but challenging to photograph.

We were in the line to climb the tower of Notre Dame just before the 10am opening time. It was a pretty easy ascent (with an obligatory stop in the gift shot) and the view was well worth it. I took lots of pictures of the Eiffel tower, gargoyles and the Paris skyline. I also got to see Notre Dame’s flying buttresses. I am embarrassed to admit that I didn’t really understand what a flying buttress was until a few weeks before my trip to Paris. It’s a good thing Allison gave me Rick Steves’ “Europe 101″ for my birthday! After descending the tower we walked through the main church concentrating our attendion on the rose windows.

Next we visited the Museum of Modern Art, which is in the Pompidou Centre. It was, um, interesting. Mom said that the paintings of people with both eyes on the same side of their faces look a lot more like art after you’ve passed through the rooms displaying inflatable furniture, ropes and a life sized red plastic rhinoceros. There were a few pieces that I liked but they were few and far between.

After lunch we visited the Cluny Museum of the middle ages. The most impressive thing we saw were the The Lady and the Unicorn tapestries. Then we went to the Panthéon where many of France’s famous men and one woman, Marie Curie, are entombed. The Panthéon was another highlight of the trip for me because there we got see Foucault’s pendulum.

Above you can see a huge pendulum swinging from the top of a what is a domed roof. The pendulum is not restricted in its axis of oscillation and was an early proof that the earth actually rotates. We spent a long time observing the pendulum because we couldn’t figure out why it only rotated through about 272 degrees. There were hours marked in a circle around the pendulum which made us think they must have the restart it every day. There was no explanation in the 7 minute video playing about the pendulum or in any of the books in the gift shop. We discussed the pendulum almost exclusively on the metro ride back to the hotel and concluded that it must have something to do with latitude. We reasoned that if the pendulum was at the north pole it would complete 360 degrees in one day and if it was on the equator it would not rotate at all. We googled it when the got home and found out that the total degrees of rotation per day is related to the sine of the latitude! Trust Mom and I to bring math and physics into any vacation!