Ah, Paris!

"Paris is always a good idea." - title character in the movie "Sabrina"

Paris. Known as the "City of Light", so it's quite appropos that I spend some time here, n'est-ce pas? Staying with friends in the Parisian suburb of Clamart, I make my way to the Musée Cluny (after the requisite café au lait and pain de campagne). The museum is located in the heart of the city’s Quartier Latin (“Latin Quarter”) on the Left Bank, so named because medieval scholars studying at the Cluny Abbey and the Sorbonne conversed regularly in this ancient language, part of their renewed interest in the classics. It remains the intellectual heart of the city to this day. Indeed, the Sorbonne (where I spent a semester as an undergrad all those years ago) is a stone’s throw from the Cluny. Somehow, I never made it to this museum back in those days, despite being encouraged by professors at the time. Mieux tard que jamais! (Better late than never!)
Entrance today is free because of a faulty cash register, so I would spend those euros on a few books when I get to the museum’s bookshop. The museum is within the ruins of natural thermal baths that date back to Roman times. Today, the building that graces the site is what's left of a Clluniac complex that was begun in the early 14th century. The remaining building was an abbot's mansion, constructed in a combination of Gothic and Renaissance styles. Famous exhibits include the Lady and the Unicorn, heads of French kings (and a few Biblical kings as well) shorn off their bodies by French revolutionaires in the 18th century, reliquaries of every gruesome shape imaginable, panels of stained glass, and household items dating back to Roman times.