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Saturday, October 15, 2005

Let's start the art history tour

» Posted by Jon at 8:47 pm :: Comments (0)

Around the world of art in four days. We've got some walking to do.

Day 3: Tuesday

We start the museum tour in earnest today, heading straight to the Musee d'Orsay in the morning. Don't let anyone kid you, there is much hidden walking and standing in any museum visit.

We dutifully followed the guide books, working through the Grand Hall of this former train station, now host to sculpture of all styles with a few rooms of paintings off to the side for good measure.

And then we went upstairs. Really, we wound up with our own little photographic tour of the museum, with shots ranging from the highlighted impressionists through some realism, pointilism and, yes, sculpture.

We lunched at the cafeteria on the top floor, with a little photo break out onto the terrace, just a sandwich on baguette with some Toblerone for energy.

Then it was back to the paintings. We actually did Degas, Gaugin and friends after lunch. We also headed back down to the second floor to finish with some of the not-so-good paintings and a few more sculptures, including Rodin's Walking Man and a giant polar bear that seemed a little out of place with all the wood nymphs, goddesses and busts.

We then headed for the Rodin musem, where the master lived his last few years and died. The expansive gardens serve as an exhibition area for some of his most famous works, including La Penseur, which was originally envisioned as part of a larger work, a depiction of Dante's hell that no one ever really talks about. Possibly because I don't get the feeling he ever finished a version he really liked.

Next door, more or less, looms the golden dome of Les Invalides and Napolean's tomb. We wandered over: quite the tribute to French military success.

Despite a slight rain that began to fall, then stopped, then started again, we headed to the shopping strip Rue Cler. In America, we call them supermarkets. Here, it is a street full of vendors of all sorts of specialties: bakeries, cheese shops, wine shops, places that will roast your chicken or, of course, furnish you with any sort of chocolate or pastry you would like for dessert. One thing is that all the places have great names, some of which is attributable to the French language. House of Ham might not make it. But Maison du Jambon gets a prime spot in the middle of the block.

Since we were so close, and since the rain was intermittent at best, we headed over to get some pictures of the Eiffel Tower. With the clouds, they may not be the greatest, but at least we got some in the evening.

For dinner, we headed to a street with a few possibilities nearby and wound up choosing a little place all decked out in red that may have catered a little too much to American tourists. Don't get me wrong, the food was fine. Confit de canard was a hit as was the goat cheese appetizer. The lobster pate and Dover sole done in a wine sauce (pretty sure it was champagne) with rice were fine. But it was the Chocolat Gauteau and Cafe au Lait that finished the meal strong.

Reinvigorated, we figured, well, we're so close, might as well head back to the Eiffel Tower for the light show, take some pictures from the ground. Did we mention that it twinkles on the hour? We got there in time for the 2100 show and shot from various spots on the Champ de Mars, then walked up closer to it, and closer. Couldn't go under it and it was getting late to go up, so we kept walking a took a few more shots from the Trocadeo on the other side of the river. And then watched as tour buses rolled up and people flocked to the 2200 show. Then we headed home.

» Filed under: Paris, Photolog

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