Star Wars Paris!

Today I left early from work to go to two really amazing exhibits going on in Paris.

The first one was an exhibit dedicated to Pixar. It had a bunch of early character sketches, models, and color studies. It also had several early Pixar short films and an amazing Toy Story zoetrope. Kara LOVED it! I thought it was really cool and definitely a must for any Pixar fan. It's in Paris until March 2nd, and while we had planned on seeing it ever since it opened back in November, we finally only made it today.

It was also neat because I finally got to go to the "Les Docks en Seine" which I'd always seen on cab rides to our flat in Paris, but never visited. It's the big green interesting looking building near Gare d'Austerlitz.

The second exhibit was even more amazing. It's a new Star Wars exhibit in Paris called Star Wars Identities
. It has the original costumes, original models, original C3P0 and R2D2, original character sketches, and much much more. As a huge Star Wars fan, it was absolutely amazing and I HIGHLY recommend it to anyone visiting Paris through July. If you're a Star Wars fan at all, I'd consider it a don't miss exhibit if you're visiting Paris. The "identities" part was a really slick way of adding some interactive content with a wristband where you can select different attributes for a Star Wars character you create. It was really really neat, and while a bit pricy (19€) was well worth it. The signs and audioguide are both in French and English. Make sure to get tickets ahead of time, as they have specific time slots and considering how crowded it was on a random February, I can't imagine it during the summer. Also don't take the RER D to get there, use line 13 to Carrefour Pleye stop, which is covered in the normal metro ticket.

In the middle of those two exhibits we also walked along the Promenade plantée which is located in the 12th. It's one of those little treasures that most tourists don't get to do since I wouldn't consider it a "don't miss" but does make Paris that much more interesting to those who live here. It's a 3 mile linear park with elevated view, much like the new New York Highline walk (though I haven't been to NYC since it opened, so I can't make a direct comparison). If you're in the 12th though, I'd recommend checking it out for a nice interesting little walk.