Chocolat!

Another busy day in Paris. Joel went to work and I started at the Pompidou Centre.
I had never been there before, so it was a treat. There was a Lucien Freud exhibit. Very interesting. He painted a lot of nude, fat women. I wonder what his grandfather (Sigmund) would have made of that. And surprisingly, his paintings of plants were fabulous.

I took the escalator up to the top floor where there were spectacular views of the city.

There were also several wooden structures mounted on the outside of the building (see photo), but I never found an explanation of those.








After getting a crepe on the street for lunch, I took the Metro to St. Germaine to go on the long awaited Chocolate tour. It turns out that I had a private tour. We started at Maison du Chocolat and ended at Laduree, visiting a number of pastry shops and chocolate shops in between, with samples from each place. I brought many back to Joel so that he could enjoy them too. I also learned some history from my guide about the Hotel Lutetia, where we had stayed a number of years ago when visiting Carrie and Aaron here. I knew that it was the Nazi headquarters in Paris, but what I learned is that after the war, it was the central place for the Jews returning from the camps to find their relatives. So at least the history wasn't all terrible.
Anyway, as you can see from the photos, some of the shops turn chocolate into an art form. Others make pastries incredibly beautiful. And of course, they are all amazingly fresh and wonderful.

Tomorrow is our last day in Paris. I am not sure what the plans are yet, except that Joel is working until noon. We leave later in the day for Madrid.

Bon soir