Paris Day 4

Thursday – The Louvre and the Musee d’Orsay. What a day! Claire had originally planned to spend the whole day at the Louvre, but it is a truly overwhelming place.

After 5 hours we both felt we couldn’t absorb anymore. The Italian painter galleries were fairly crowded, especially around the Mona Lisa.

The “other” da Vinci painting

Once away from the Mona Lisa the crowds weren’t too bad. We really enjoyed the Dutch galleries and the sculptures.

We spent some time in all 3 wings, even so there was a lot we didn’t see. Claire has decided that the only way to truly appreciate the Louvre is to live in Paris for a year and visit one section every few days. Have our lotto numbers come up while we have been away?

The Musee d”Orsay opens late on Thursday so we headed back to the apartment for a while. We bought sandwiches from our local patisserie, though sandwiches aren’t the same here as they are at home. They are made on huge baguettes. We can now recognise the words for ham and cheese. After our late lunch we set off for the Musee d’Orsay.

It was everything Claire had hoped it would be. Even without the exhibits that went to Canberra it is a wonderful collection. We discovered Van Goghs, Renoirs and Pissaros that we haven’t seen before. There is a superb collection of Art Nouveau furniture.

We weren’t allowed to take photos there which was probably a good thing because Claire would have filled a card! She did buy a book, it even has some of the missing paintings in it.

Back at the apartment we took a photo of the garden. It is a lovely.

Time for tea and off we went again, walking around another block nearby. A lot of the restaurants have similar menus, with a fair number of Italian dishes. We figure we will have enough Italian over the next few weeks so we were looking for something a bit different. We found a Thai restaurant not too far away. The food was delicious, probably the best meal we have had so far since the cruise. we might go back again on our last night.