Un petit peu d'Egypte à Paris

The café next to the apartment, Les Mousquetaires, has been refitted and is now an inviting space for coffee, a meal or a drink.  I'm very fond of Les Mousquetaires...in its previous life as Café des Mousquetaires, which was more of an old-style bar when we knew it, Brent bought takeaway espressos there and brought them back to the apartment for me when I was ill...a little Parisian pick-me-up!  Anyway, we started the day with a formule petit dejeuner...a fixed price breakfast of orange juice, croissant or tartine (baguette) and coffee.  The formule menus are usually great value; for lunch and dinner they offer, for a fixed price, an entrée and plat (main) or a plat and dessert, plus a wine, soft drink or coffee.

We made a list last night of all the exhibitions we would like to see while we're in Paris and we have our work cut out for us trying to get to them all...but what work!  We started today with a new exhibition, Osiris...Mysteres Engloutis D'Egypte, at the Institut du Monde Arabe.  The Institut du Monde Arabe is a fabulous building of patterned glass and steel and worth a visit even when there is no exhibition showing.  The Osiris exhibition is fantastic!  Mostly the exhibition comprises archaeological finds, including massive granite statues, from the underwater sites of Egyptian cities of Thonis/Heracleion and Canopus, originally thought to be mythical cities.  The cities date back to the 8th century BC, and existed until the 8th century AD when they finally disappeared into the sea after a series of natural catastrophes.  The sites were uncovered by French archaeologist Franc Goddio in 2000, near Alexandria, the finds having been preserved by the sea sediment.  The work is ongoing and it is estimated that only 3% has so far been uncovered.  The myth of Osiris is fascinating and is told through the exhibits, and the whole exhibition is in semi-darkness with underwater film of the archaeologists at work shown on the walls.  We loved it!

Once we surfaced from the exhibition, it was lunch, a walk to the Jardin du Luxembourg and then a wander home.