I went to Europe, part 3

9 days in Paris, day 4 . . .

flamingos at la Menagerie, le zoo du Jardin des Plantes

I have a complicated relationship with zoos--I love going to them and they make me sad. Husband has learned that we must always visit a zoo or aquarium on our vacations, and there will be emotions. I must see the animals, so La Menagerie, le zoo du Jardin des Plantes was our first stop of the morning.

a red panda at la Menagerie, le zoo du Jardin des Plantes

The zoo in Home Town has a fantastic red panda breeding program, so we have seen many red pandas. But this is the best photo we have ever taken of a red panda. I should say that Husband has ever taken, as he is responsible for almost all of the photos you see in this post series. The zoo was filled with young kids. It was like being in a Madeline book with all of the "regardez la!" going on. French kids are cute. I swear every one was in a scarf.

elephants are huge

The unexpected awesomeness of the day was when we went to the Galerie de Paleontologie et d'Anatomie Comparee, which is also in the park with the zoo. We passed by it when we entered the park and outside is a dinosaur sculpture, so we decided to check it out after the zoo (which didn't take as long as we expected). I was expecting some cool exhibits and a few fossils, spread out and ringed with worn velvet ropes. Nope. It is a building with huge rooms packed full of skeletons and fossils, and you can stand right next to them. So many skeletons! And we looked at every one. I'm pretty sure we took more pictures here than anywhere else.

Galerie de paleontologie

We started in the Comparative Anatomy floor, which groups skeletons by family. The french vocabulary we picked up in the zoo came in handy here when it wasn't obvious which animals we were looking at. The dinosaur fossils and replicas are on the second floor. It's amazing. I walked around with my hands clasped behind my back so I wouldn't touch anything. You just have to go here on your next trip to Paris. Aside from the whole OMG FOSSILS! reaction of my inner-8-year-old, it is amazing to see how similar skeletal structures are between animals and where they differ. This place gives one a new respect for the diversity of life. It is literally awesome.

Galerie d'anatomie comparee

Somehow, after all of that, we still had daylight, so we ended the day at Notre Dame. The line for the cathedral was still quite long, so we oohed and ahhed over the architecture for a bit before going to see the crypte archeologique du parvis Notre-Dame. It lays out the history of Paris developing into the city it is today, and it displays the findings from an archaeological dig on the site in the late 1960s. The remains were mostly from the Roman Empire and Middle Ages. Again, quite fascinating.

la cathedrale Notre-Dame

Part 1, Part 2, and I'm a doctor.