Mairie du 5eme arrondissement

We stayed very local today -- partly due to the weather, partly because we were up late watching Eurovision last night. We took advantage of the "Quartier du livre" festival to get a free admission to the Pantheon in exchange for the donation of a book -- great deal as we've acquired too many books to bring back as it is. The interior is awfully impressive. Among other things, we liked the frescos by Puvis de Chavannes, a sculpture by Paul Landowski and Foucault's pendulum. We left a coin on the tomb of Marie Curie and also paid our respects to Zola, Hugo, Dumas, Voltaire, Rousseau and Germaine Tillion. A concert was starting just as we left so we got to hear the impressive acoustics as well.

We went over to the Mairie du 5ème arrondissement afterwards where there were book signings and a big book sale. Mostly I was curious to see the inside of the Mairie. I really liked this fresco by Henri Martin (1935) of the Luxembourg Gardens (which is technically in the 6th arrondissement, but no matter). More about it here (in French). I managed to hold myself back from buying any more books at the sale... so we are officially down 4 books since this morning. Progress!