Day 2 and the Musee d'Orsay

Today we slept in a bit and then walked to the Musee d'Orsay. The weather today is very clear but a bit chilly and very windy. Because we bought tickets yesterday, we were able to go right in without waiting in line.

We purchased the audio guides, in English, then we started on the ground floor. To those of you who've been, the Musee d'Orsay is located in an old train station directly across the Seine from the Louvre (Paris' most famous museum). The building itself is magnificent, let alone all the objets d'art inside it. On the ground floor they have many sculptures by the likes of Rodin, etc.

The period of the art in the Musee d'Orsay starts where the Louvre ends, around 1850, and ends around 1915. They are especially known for their Impressionist collection. We had seen some of this before, in our previous visit in 2003, but at that time we only had time for the "Griswald Family" style tour, so we really wanted to pace ourselves this time.

We first saw the few temporary exhibitions: one on early photography, where most of the photographs were dated early 1850, another by a post-impressionist painter.

We broke for lunch before heading to the big-hitting impressionists on the 5th floor. We had our cheese, saucisson, fruit and wine that we bought yesterday, and so we left the museum, bought some fresh bread (une baguette de tradition francaise, bien sur), and walked to a little secluded square a few blocks from the museum for a picnic.

Back in the museum we viewed all the paintings by the major Impressionists and Post-Impressionists like Monet, Renoir, Toulouse-Latrec, Pissaro, Manet, Van Gogh, Gaugins, Cezanne, and Degas. Amazing. I think my favorites are probably Pisarro for his technique, and Van Gogh overall. Van Gogh definitely hinted at being more expressionist- diverging from Impressionism and imposing his own reality. I suppose he was a bit like Beethoven in that regard- a period-crossing master who influenced many that followed.

I found myself getting de-sensitized a bit though, as you walk by masterpiece after masterpiece. You find yourself saying, "yeah yeah, whatever, another Renoir, so?". Ya. Induced by post-lunch food coma, I actually fell asleep in one of the galleries as Lisa looked for me for about 10 minutes. She snapped some photos of that funny moment. My father's son, I suppose.

After the museum, we walked over into the Marais, past the Louvre, Les Halles, the Pompidou Center. We were to be meeting our house-swap partner, a young guy named Olivier, to exchange keys. We had a quick cafe to wait and re-energize.

Olivier seems very nice. I'd say he's probably 28 or so. We discussed various things about each of our apartments, exchanged keys, and said goodbye. We'll move in there Friday afternoon, as he leaves for San Francisco on Friday morning.

We took the Metro (from Arts et Metiers stop) back to our hotel, where we ended up taking a nap that lasted through dinner... and the rest of the night. Lisa awoke around midnight hungry for a crepe and she went out in search of one a few blocks around the hotel but wasn't successful.

Another great day. We'll post some pictures from today a bit later.

Tomorrow we don't have any plans at all, so we'll probably just explore this neighborhood, around the Champs Elysees and the Arc de Triomphe, etc.

A tout a l'heure,

Brad