Musee de l'Armee in Paris: A Vast Museum of French Military History

On this trip to Paris, I visited the Musee de l'Armee or the Army Museum. With more than 500,000 artifacts in 12,000 square meters (3 acres) of space, I walked a couple of miles seeing nearly a millennium of French military history.  The museum is located in the shadow of the Eiffel Tower on the south bank of the Seine River in the Invalides area of Paris.  
 

The featured exhibit currently is about the the French Resistance and about the Deportation of Jews to death camps. More than 250,000 Jews were sent east, mostly to die under Nazi occupation.  

The collection also includes suits of armor from Medieval France. 

Weapons and uniforms from the Napoleonic era up through World War II

Paris Training Race and Recovery

 

After riding in the Alps on the weekend, I was able to ride in Paris twice.  On Tuesday, I went to the Hippodrome in the southwest corner of the city and rode in the daily training race.  The two-mile circular road around the horse racing track is closed to car traffic every day at 10am and open to bicyclists.  I have been riding at L'Hippodrome since 1999. This link has a map.

Groups of bicycles form peletons of every speed and ride the circle.  I joined a group of twenty and did seven laps at 22-23mph before dropping off. The circle is roughly one km flat, one km slightly uphill and one km slightly downhill. On my sixth lap I dropped off the group on the uphill, then caught up on the downhill. On the seventh lap, I was done. 

 I rode to a local village, ate lunch. Rode back and joined a slower group before returning the bicycle.  

On Thursday, I rode back circle. I  rode four laps with a group riding a little slower than the Tuesday group. The group dissolved after four laps so I rode to Chatou, a lovely village on the Seine about five miles west of Paris.  Between Paris and Chatou is short, steep Mont Valerien. I could barely climb the 3km hill. 

Before that ride I was thinking I might ride on the weekend. As I rode at walking speed up Mont Valerien, it was clear that the ride in the Alps and the Tuesday speed workout  had left me deeply tired.  One of the difficulties riding, or any kind of training, as we get older is that we need more rest.  And it was clear that the huge effort of the weekend before was not a great idea as far as my body was concerned.

I decided to listen to my body and visit museums in Normandy rather than ride.  I am sure it was the best plan. It seems strange to be sensible. 

Autoworld Brussels--The American Cars

Autoworld Brussels has many groups of cars in its huge collection. One big group is American  cars.  Mostly mid century. Some real beauties, some strange ones.

1975 AMC Pacer

1965 Lincoln Convertible

1958 Cadillac Fleetwood

Harley Hog

1948 Chrysler New Yorker Convertible

1965 Amphicar 770

1956 DeSoto Diplomat Custom Convertible

1956 Chevrolet Nomad

Auto World in Brussels--300 cars from 1896 to Today

In a huge complex of buildings connected to a park is AutoWorld Brussels.  The museum is near a huge stone arch commemorating Belgian independence and opposite another huge museum of Belgian military history. Another large museum of fine arts and antiquities is on the other side of the arch.

Auto World displays 300 cars and motorcycles from 1896 to the present.  Belgium has no history of making cars, but this small country is at the center of northern Europe and is also the political center of the European Union and NATO. Belgium is also a center of racing. The Spa-Francorchamps race track is considered the best track, especially by drivers, in the Formula 1 World Championship. 

Just inside the entrance of the museum was a display of new Bugatti luxury high-performance cars costing $3 million to $5 million and other models made over the past century.

2020 Bugatti Centodieci, W16, 4-turbo, 1600-horsepower, 380kmh top speed

2021 La Voiture Noire, W16, 4-turbo, 1600-horsepower, 420kmh top speed

Bugatti luxury cars from the 1920s and 30s

Bugatti race car from the 1930s

Little Cars and car shop dioramas ringed the main display area.

Trabant

A bright red Jeep

1968 Honda S800

1954 Moretti Grand Sport Berlinetta, 748cc, 71hp

1951 Renault R4 CV 750cc, 17hp

Garage dioramas

Renault 2CV

Strange little cars

The Museum of The Bible in Washington D.C.--The 'Merica View of Scripture, Plus Scandal

 

In the Spring of 2018, I was in Washington D.C. for a museums conference and heard a lot about the newly opened (November 2017) Museum of the Bible.  The six-floor $400 million project was launched and largely funded by the Green family that owns Hobby Lobby.  

Even before it opened, the museum was immersed in a smuggling scandal over thousands of looted Iraqi antiquities acquired by devious means for the museum. The Green family paid millions in fines and returned many of the artifacts.  The story is here. 

A second scandal surrounded Dead Sea Scrolls fragments donated to the museum by Hobby Lobby founder Steve Green. Shortly after the museum opened they were called out as possible forgeries. They remained on display until 2020 when they were finally removed after being definitely declared forgeries.  Science writer Jennifer Ouellette reported on the forgeries.

I did not write about the visit at the time because I had such a bad experience. But while visiting several museums in Europe in the past two weeks, I remembered the Museum of the Bible. My overwhelming memory of the visit was of noise and flashing light. The section on Biblical archeology had highly produced videos in which a very handsome man sped around the desert in a very expensive Land Rover telling us the wonders he was digging up (with his manicured hands).

At the time, I knew Christian Nationalism was a threat to democracy, but not nearly the threat it is now. So one of the worst aspects of the museum did not hit me as hard then. There is a strong promotion of America being founded as a Christian nation with a mission for God.  It looked crazy at the time. It is ominous now that Great Replacement Theory is the official position of the Republican Party. 

From Vienna to Brussels, the museums I visited were quiet. When they had video screens they were sequestered, not blaring in the center of the room. If a Museum of the Bible were located in Prague or Paris or Palermo it would focus on words, languages, artifacts, archaeology, and be quiet. 

Another scandal among people talking about the Museum of the Bible in 2018 was the opening Gala. It was held at the Trump Hotel in Washington. Many of the staff refused to attend. 

The "White House" of the European Union

 Almost a decade ago, Nina Wolff wrote a biography of her father, based upon a trove of letters he gave her shortly before he died. Now she is writing the biography of an immense building in the Schuman area of Brussels which is arguably the "White House" of the European Union: the Residence Palace.

The building figures prominently in Wolff's book about her father. It was built in 1927 as a huge residential complex with a swimming pool, a 500-seat theater and all the services of a small city.  Wolff's family lived there before they began their arduous escape from Brussels to France to America from that building. 

During World War II, the huge building became the headquarters of the Wehrmacht and the Luftwaffe--Nazis took the best places for themselves in conquered countries.  Because the building was full of Nazis it attracted spies adding to its lore.

Much of the original structure has been replaced by modern buildings. Notable is a building with windows from all over Europe fit together in a giant jigsaw puzzle as a symbol of the European Union bringing together all of Europe.

 The book about Nina Wolff's father, his escape from Nazi-occupied France as a teenager and his service in the U.S. Army a few years later is in the book "Someday You Will Understand: My Father's Private World War II." I wrote about the book and how an Axl Rose t-shirt started a discussion about The Holocaust.

Medusa in Caen, France

 

At the Musee Beaux Arts in Caen, France, is a temporary exhibit of art about Medusa.  She is the terrifying Gorgon of Greek myth with snakes for hair. A man who looks in her eyes is turned to stone.  Her power is so great that when Dante has Heaven's protection to walk through Hell, Virgil still must shield him from Medusa who could have turned him to stone inside Hell. All of this happens in Canto 9, one of the most dramatic of Dante's netherworld journey.

The exhibit is beautifully made. Here is the website. The English translation did not work for me, but Google Translate works well.