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On our last full day in Paris two of us left Paris reducing our number from 10 to 8, the 8 remaining being the ones who all left home together last Thursday. The eight of us went to the Cluny Medieval Museum in the morning, then there was some separation, then we regrouped for a boat ride on the Sein. Following the boat ride we split up again, some going to the Rodin museum, others going to Montmartre and two of us going to the Monument Museum. I went to the Monument Museum and the two of us following that went to the Lutetian Arena. At the end of the day we all regrouped in our apartment and had a great time recapping the day, and reviewing the week. There was nothing notable about the next morning when we packed and got our lift to the airport and flew home.

The Cluny museum from the front; looks medieval, doesn't it?

This museum is famous for its tapestries, here is one.

Here is another.

The museum also had many other items from the medievil times, including this chest that comes from the 15th century.

Inside the building where the Cluny museum currently is, there is this chapel that was there for the users of this building.

Another from the same chapel.

The museum also had relics from the medievil ages like this crown.

What may be the most popular or most significant of the tapestries in the museum are the unicorn ones where there are six of them. Five of them display the five senses, but the sixth is a little mysterious; one of our group who is knowledgable in such things has indicated that these are important as they were at a time that most if not all art was religious yet these were mystic.

Here is a closeup of one section of the above tapestry

Here is a closeup of the closeup above.

The Cluny museum rests on what used to be a Roman Bath site, and this large room was a Roman bath room at some time in the distant past.

Outside of the Cluny is a well that on first glance it isn't clear if it is a real one that was once in use.

Looking into it gave us a clearer picture that indeed it is more than likely that in the past this was operational.

We took the RER (train, not metro) from the Cluny to where we would meet up to catch our boat ride, and in the St. Michel train station the platform curves (look in the distance). Quite a number of the metro stations we went to also curved. This is different from the city I live in where all of the stations have platforms that are straight.

On the boat ride we saw that some of the bridges had guys like this.

On these steps that came down to the lowest level near the water people were sitting and waved to us, we waved back.

After building after building that looked from the 16th, 17th and 18th centuries, here is one that is sorely out of place.

Apparently during the great flood of XXXX, the water went up to this guy's beard.

This and the next three photos are from the Museum of historical monuments. Artists would create a plaster mould of the various stone structures and then come back and with those moulds, pour cement to recreate them. In places where a part of the original was damaged, they would attempt to recreate it in a way that had it as close to the original as possible. This museum was full of such recreations.

Just a small section of this museum to show you how much there was.

From within this museum we could look out the window and see, ummm... this

After that museum we made our way to the Lutetian Arena which dates back to the Roman era when the Paris area was called Lutetia. Standing in the center of this circular arena was impressive, especially with an echo that bounced back to you from all directions. As the linked article indicates, none of what is seen here is original to the Roman era arena, however, the actual space and the principle of how it was restored in the 19th century reflects truly to how it must have been.