We finally made it to the National Museum of the Middle Ages, which is also known as the Musée de Cluny. The mansion formerly belonged to the abbots of Cluny, and was rebuilt in the late 15th century. The museum has a variety of important medieval artifacts, but probably the most important are the six La Dame à la Licorne (The Lady and the Unicorn) tapestries, from the late fifteenth century, a famous work of art from the Middle Ages.
Located in the in 5th arrondissement, the Musée de Cluny building is partially built on the remains of Gallo-Roman baths from the 3rd century (known as the Thermes de Cluny), which may still be visited. They constitute about one-third of a large bath complex that used to exist in the ancient city of Lutetia, the ancestor of present-day Paris.
The story of the city of Paris actually starts on the nearby Île de la Cité, in the middle of the Seine, which was settled by the Parisii, a Gallic tribe who settled in the area during the 3rd century BC. The area was eventually conquered by the Romans and became the Gallo-Roman city of Lutetia (Lutetia Parisiorum in Latin), which spilled over to the Left Bank. The city reclaimed its original appellation of 'Paris' towards the end of the Roman occupation.
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Fast forward to the 20th century. On the Cité island, just beneath the Notre Dame de Paris cathedral square, while trying to build a subterranean parking lot, they discovered the foundations and vestiges of buildings that were constructed during the Gallo-Roman period. The site became the Crypte Archéologique du Parvis Notre Dame and is one of the 'History of Paris' museums of the City of Paris, which we also finally visited this week. The Crypte Archéologique is built around the archaeological remains and illustrates the origins of Paris and shows the life and setting of the Île de la Cité from the 3rd to the 19th centuries.
Very little is left of the ancient Gallo-Roman city, but in the 5th arrondissement, hidden behind some apartment buildings, some remains of the Arènes de Lutèce, a 1st century arena, still exist. The site was discovered in the 1860s when they were building Rue Monge and is now a public park.
After our tour we meandered across the Seine toward Place du Chatelet, where the Fontaine du Palmier, or Fontaine de la Victoire, is located. It was built to provide fresh drinking water to the neighborhood and to celebrate French victories in battle. Its distinctive sphinxes were added later to commemorate Napoleon's victory in Egypt.
On one side of the plaza we noticed Le Zimmer, a café-restaurant we had been to during our vacation in Paris in July 2010. My brother and his wife were in town the morning we landed in Paris and invited us there for breakfast (which is why I look a bit jet-lagged in the picture...).
Le Zimmer is right next to the Theatre du Chatelet and saw its heyday in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, but it was completely redone in 2000. When we were there in 2010 it was summer so we sat outside and never saw there was such a beautiful restaurant inside. This time we went inside for lunch. The place definitely feels very Parisian.
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