We got our morning almond croissant and then took the Metro to the Musée d'Orsay. We were only able to squeeze in a really fast couple hours there on my last trip, so I really wanted to spend more time there this go around.
We passed a realtor's office with postings in the window and were surprised to see you can get a little place along The Seine for almost 3 million euros, oh is that all?!
I was amused to learn that the Musée d'Orsay actually costs a bit more than entrance to The Louvre, though it's still a bargain.
Michelle and I loved the first couple of rooms we visited and were particularly taken with this woman there painting. Painting is so beyond my skill set that the whole vision and process baffle me. I am definitely one who appreciates this art, but doesn't really understand how it's possible at all.
After walking through a disappointing and at times disturbing Art Nouveau exhibit (surely there were drugs involved with that movement) we wandered around enjoying some sculptures by Rodin and took this self-portrait with the museum's awesomeness behind us. I love that building!!
We wandered around oohing, ahhing and discussing various paintings and came across these. The woman in the painting on the right appeared to be looking into my soul while tapping her fingers together and asking me what I planned to do with this experience. She's diabolical and didn't look like a painting, but like a real person (a thin, pasty one, but still). I decided she's more Mona Lisa-esque than the Mona Lisa.
The rooms full of Impressionist paintings are the big draw for everyone, and really who can blame us hordes for wanting to see them?
It was a bit mind bending to be surrounded by so many amazing and famous works of art. I couldn't help feeling a little guilty for spending so little time admiring each one. I thought it was cool that this Degas was painted at Opéra, especially since we'd just seen that building the day before.
Oh how I love the detail of this painting with the writing supplies and books.
We took one short break to rest our feet, admire some paintings and take a scary self-portrait. It turns out that the lighting that works best for paintings, does NOT work well for pasty, white people!
This was one of the gorgeous views out one of the windows in the gallery, not too shabby eh?
We saw this adorable mother and daughter (and later grandmother as well) walking around and they literally brought tears to my eyes. Can you imagine being able to take your child out for an afternoon at such a place? (Admission to museums is free from kids under 18.)
We were struck by similar thoughts upon seeing multiple school field trips going on. There were all these little kids hopping around with no idea that they were in such a marvelous place seeing so many miracles--it must be nice not to feel any pressure to soak it all up while wandering there.
I commented to Michelle that this painting looks like a man in a dress, I'm sure of it, then we saw these two women bent over with laughter while looking at it and decided they must have come to the same conclusion.
We were so starving by this point and decided to try one of the restaurants in the museum. We were seated right next to one of the huge clocks that can be seen from the outside of the building.
I ordered the lasagna and Michelle ordered the Tartine and we both ended up not really liking the food. I was having some serious texture issues with the lasagna because the 5 layers of noodles and the cheese were so soft and plentiful. I could only make myself eat half of it for body fueling and headache prevention purposes.
We decided to get dessert to help fill us up and give us something tasty to eat, and were happy with that choice, thought the waffle could have been softer.
Our bill was a bit steep though! The servers in Paris get 15% plus whatever else you give them and they basically only take your order, bring your food and then bring your check (there's no, "How is everything tasting? or Can I get you anything else?" going on in Paris) and make a ton of money. It's no wonder you see mature men as professional waiters there, they must be living in an apartment on The Seine with all the money they're making!
We returned to our art appreciation wanderings and found lots more goodness to see. I loved the vignette in this painting.
It was fun to see this Toulouse-Lautrec in real life because we have a print of it on our bedroom wall. The real painting is much smaller than I thought it would be and appears to be done in chalk on a brown grocery bag type paper. A lot of his sketches appear to have been done on whatever paper was lying around.
We finally decided we'd had enough after 4.5 hours.
Upon heading outside there were groups of people everywhere smoking; being in the museum for a long time must have given them quite a hankering.
Here's the clock we ate lunch inside of!
We started walking over to Jardin des Tuileries, which was conveniently located right across the river, and provided a gorgeous walk along the way.
Isn't this sign kind of funny? How can so many amazing places be located so close together?
We stopped to rest on a bench on the bridge and took another self-portrait.
We took a self-portrait of our weary feet (which really should have some sort of pain radiation coming from them) on the bridge as well. Notice Michelle's very soft, cute polka-dotted socks which Jenn sent with me to give her.
**Can you believe this is only half our day?
Do you have any painting skills?
Do you like Impressionist art?
Can you imagine being able to take your kids
to a place like this for an afternoon?**
Do you have any painting skills?
Do you like Impressionist art?
Can you imagine being able to take your kids
to a place like this for an afternoon?**
Comment Window Tidbit: Where is everyone? It's not even the weekend, yet hardly anyone is commenting. I'm going to get a complex about it.
