What's under the pyramid? Not what Dan Brown thought. (Paris, part 3b)

Wandering the halls of the Louvre can suck weeks out of your life, so I skipped the museum entirely this time. Instead, on a rainy night I found my way downstairs, past the inverted pyramid, to Le Carrousel des Métiers d'Art et de Création. Admittedly I initially headed this way because I thought they'd installed a merry-go-round at the museum (which would have been cool), but what I found was better.

I've enjoyed our local craft fair scene for the last few years, but this was definitely a step up. This was a regional exhibition of wares made by people who truly know how to make things: bookbinders, glassblowers, milliners (hats!), painting restorers, brass horn makers, weavers and a half dozen other kinds of people that seem nearly extinct these days. The demonstrations by students from the local lycées gave me the most hope. These kids attend trade schools where they learn to craft costumes for operas, craft shoes from the sole up and build replicas of eighteenth century chairs. Elsewhere they might be looked down on for not taking the standard university route, but I was jealous. These kids have skills and damned good ones.

Felted mouse circus! And skulls in the background!

I may have missed out on seeing Delacroix, David and da Vinci, but I got to see the future artists and craftsmen and women of the Parisian region, and that was definitely worth the visit. Oh, and what is under the inverted pyramid? A shopping mall. Really. An Apple store and a lot of bedraggled tourists.