I was Paris recently for work but snuck away for a couple of wonderful meals (at Au Bon Accueil and La Maison du Jardin, both highly recommended), drinks at the top of the Pompidou Center, and a quick visit to the newly restored Musee Guimet. The Guimet is stunning, for the breadth and quality of its collections and the beauty of the space, if not so much for its interpretative materials. I’ve never spent much time in Paris and I don’t think of it as one of ‘my cities’ like I think of New York or Bangkok, but it’s obviously a great, gorgeous city and I wish I had the time — and the money — to make it mine. If you don’t believe me, or especially if you do, check out this panorama of Paris at night.

For the Indology nerds: there are a set of clay tablets at the Guimet, I think on the second floor, which have as their provenance a Buddhist monastery in Kashmir. The panels have raised images on them which are clearly not Buddhist. I suspect they’re Ajivika and I seem to remember an article, which of course I can’t track down now, describing how the Buddhists reused the materials from an Ajivika complex as the flooring in their monastery, as an insult. But I can’t pinpoint the source and it’s driving me nuts.

[Previously, a useful Paris map from Wallpaper*.]