We set off around 9:30 am, heading to the Musee d’Orsay. I knew almost nothing about the museum, other than that it was an art museum and had a lot of Impressionist painters. I like Impressionist painting, so I was happy enough going to the museum, but I was not prepared for what I saw when I entered the building. It was beautiful. The museum is housed in a circa-1900 train station, which was made for some special, show-off-Paris exposition, so it was made to be top-notch. The ceiling is arched and six stories tall, made of iron with decorative flowers between the girders, and the top is made of frosted glass. The space is about 190 yards long, and the museum had the foresight to leave the middle of the station open to the ceiling, so the space is vast and uncluttered. The main floor in the open gallery is filled with sculpture, which not only suits the space, but is my favorite art form. Between the building itself, and the art contents being my favorite forms, the Musee d’Orsay is hands-down my favorite art museum (sorry, Cleveland and Chicago).
Ami had a good plan for the museum, and we followed it. We started with the main floor of sculpture before we headed up to the fifth floor, where the bulk of the Impressionist paintings are. The fifth floor also has an observation deck, which I checked out with a little reservation, since I don’t like heights. The entrance to the galleries also had one of two glass clock faces from the original train station, and that was REALLY cool to see through the back side of a giant clock. The Impressionist galleries themselves are more or less laid out to show the progression of Impressionism, which I found helpful. There were still variations in the galleries, so that I saw a near-photographic painting next to a clearly Impressionist painting from just nine years later.
We took lunch then, more for pacing purposes than for hunger. We got to eat under the second of the two glass clocks, which was a great place to have lunch.
We headed back down to the second floor, where we were supposed to see some later-Impressionist works, but first I got distracted by an enormous and elaborate ballroom, which was lit to the hilt with decorated strings of lights and gilding everywhere. Ami’s opinion was that it was much better than the ballroom at Versailles, and I agreed. It was warmer with the lights, and was slightly bigger.
We hunted around for the post-Impressionism works, but we could not find the major works. It turns out they had been relocated for a special exhibition, which we found after asking about it right before we left. In between, we toured a wing dedicated to Art Nouveau, which included a lot of furniture, including one impressive entire room, including carved wooden panels. I have new decorating ideas for home.
So, the Musee d’Orsay was a major success. I would happily go back there again, if and when I got the chance. After the museum, we decided to go back to the apartment for a rest break for an hour. Naps may have been taken. Sometimes you have to recharge the touring batteries.
After the nap session, we headed down to the Seine River, and walked along the river, admiring the views, until we came to the Bateaux Mouche company, where we bought tickets for a one-hour river cruise. One of the great things about traveling “off season” (November) is that you often get a lack of crowds. As such, we had only thin crowds on the open-air second deck of the boat, so we had great views of everything. The down side to traveling off season is that we froze our duffs off. The temperature was in the high forties, on a body of water, with a pretty good wind. C’est la vie.
The boat tour starts just upstream from the Eiffel Tower, and starts by heading upstream. It took us past all the major river sites, with the multi-language commentary pointing out various important buildings, plus indicating where the very wealthy Parisians lived. The best part of the upstream portion was passing right next to Notre Dame, and seeing it from river-level. What a magnificent church. We continued upstream for a few minutes past Notre Dame, to the edge of the modern section of Paris, which is steel and glass and uninspiring after all the beautiful stone buildings of the historic section. The boat turned there, and we headed downstream, past where we started, to just past the Eiffel Tower, which was lit up and resplendent. After we turned just past the Tower, Mer and I headed downstairs into the heated section (Ami had gone there a little earlier). Seeing Paris from the river was grand, and I recommend it — just make sure you have the correct clothing!
We headed over to the Champs Elysees area, which was our ultimate destination, since they were having a several-blocks-long “Christmas Village” fair. We grabbed supper first at a sit-down restaurant before we dove into the bright lights of the big city villages. It was booth after booth after booth of fair food, Christmas lights, jewelry, and other wares. We found out that French fair food includes large chunks of salami, various sausages, crepes, and waffles with Nutella. Cotton candy is called “Daddy’s beard.” Holiday cheer includes the Thriller ride, with three floors of zombies, who were dressed in Santa outfits. We HAD to ride that ride, which was wonderfully ridiculous, and was much fun, especially since Ami screamed (on purpose) every time an animatronic monster jumped out at us. Ho ho ho.
It was delightful to see Parisians at play. The place was busy without being mobbed, and everyone I saw seemed to be having a good time. The oddest thing we came across was a display of dinosaurs, including one display that was just a leg, which was cut away on one side to show the anatomy. Yule-tide cheer!
The lights and the festive crowds and the different foods and displays all made me happy, and we had a blast, such that it came as some surprise to us to see that it was 10:00 pm. We quickly used Ami’s cell phone and some friendly directions from a man in a booth to get us to a nearby Metro stop so we could get home.