Our flat in the Latin Quarter is one street away from Université Paris 7 - Denis Diderot, which makes this a college town, crawling with students and faculty types. We feel right at home in a neighborhood full of bustling brasseries, bookshops, tiny restaurants, and corner cafés that cater to the college crowd.
For our third day, we decided to stay close to home. Seeing that it was a Saturday and lots of families with children were strolling about, we set off for the Jardin des Plantes, France's main botanical garden right around the corner. This expansive park contains four galleries of the Musée Nationale d'Histoire Naturelle: the Grande Gallerie de l'evolution, the Mineralogy museum, the Paleontology museum, and the Entomology museum. It also houses a small zoo that was formed in 1795 containing animals from the royal menagerie at Versailles. The manicured grounds and paths offer Parisians expanses of greenery, forests, winding paths for joggers, wrought-iron nooks for cozy cuddling, and acres of carefully tended flower gardens, many of which are planted with species with the specific intent of attracting and nurturing populations of butterflies.
I particularly like this picture that Annie shot looking upward into the canopy above our path, with interlacing branches that are like capillaries of photosynthetic connection.
After wandering around the paths and gardens for a while, we decided to visit the Grande Gallerie d'Evolution, where there was a special exhibit of dinosaurs. The vast, dark, cool interior, filled with multiple levels of exhibits felt like a mixture of the American museum of Natural History in New York and Bishop Hall at Hawai‘i's Bishop museum, and offered a welcome break from the warm late summer day outside.
We headed downstairs to the dinosaur exhibit, a well-ordered temporal journey through the Cretaceous and early Tertiary geologic eras (~160 - 30 million years before the present). As an evolutionary biologist, I was understandably captivated with the well-presented exhibits, and even Annie found the tour fascinating. In particular, the displays presenting the significance of the interface between the Cretaceous and Tertiary eras as recorded in sedimentary records (the famous K-T boundary) were exceptionally clear, and very well presented. I was delighted to see families with small children taking in this exploration of the origins and processes that continue to surprise and amaze young and old alike. Corresponding fossil records were similarly dramatic.
Relatively familiar fossil reconstructions, such as these raptors,
as well as some striking examples of fossil ammonites, whose closest living relative is the chambered nautilus offered glimpses of a world long disappeared.
Moving upstairs, we entered the more familiar world of present day zoology, with some old friends of the family beautifully represented.
Annie here poses with an equine amigo. Notice her foot inside the railing and her tender pat of the animal's neck. Immediately after this picture was taken, an attendant passed by, admonishing her gently with an amiable, "méchante!" (Bad girl). Note: the fashion statement of Annie's attire was completely unintentional!
And, of course, no Harrison picture collage would be complete without the giraffe, an animal whose very existence a four-year-old Johnny had solemnly declared impossible!
Altogether, our walk in the park was an unqualified delight. Animated with our reconnection with the natural world, we set off for our next adventure! Stay tuned...
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