It’s time to catch up on my posts. We have been busy during the day and in the evening by the time we have dinner and play 421 with JP it is too late to post. Today it is raining so we will take a day off from touring the city.

On Tuesday we visited the Pinacotheque for an advertised exhibit of Rubens and Van Dyke. The exhibit was disappointing for the scant few Rubens and that the Van Dykes were engravings rather than paintings. The exhibit’s primary focus was the evolution of Dutch painting with many unknown (to us) artists. While interesting, it wasn’t what we expected. However, the Pinacotheque’s own collection provided some gems. The collection was entirely different than on our last visit. It included a few Picassos, one of which was different than any of his other work I’ve seen. Unfortunately, I cannot show you pics of the paintings because this museum does not allow photography of any kind.

Next we visited the Petit Palais for the first time. This beautiful building was erected for the Paris Universal Exhibition in 1900 and became a museum in 1902…sort of like Seattle’s 1962 World’s Fair grounds becoming the Seattle Center, but with a great deal more class. The relatively small collection of art covers the 19th and early 20th century. It has several beautiful paintings we had never seen, including many of our favorite artists. Admission is free and they allow photography. However, rather than show photos of the art I will share some photos from the building and grounds which are a delight.

It was a terrific find, thanks to JP who recommended it to us. We look forward to visiting again.

For those who have read to the end of the post I will satisfy your curiosity about the game 421. It is a uniquely French dice game played in the bars for drinks. In addition to the chance roll of the dice there is a good deal of strategy (similar to that of draw poker) involving the odds of rolling certain numbers. In the first half of the game losers of each hand accumulate tokens or points. The second half involves the winners of each hand divesting themselves of tokens by giving them to the losers. The goal is to have no tokens, at which point you have won. Jean and I will be happy to teach anyone to play. The loser buys!

Paul