Day 7 – The Orsay

It’s Tuesday and another wet day, but not like yesterday. The best sight to see is a museum. First choice: the Musee d’Orsay. The Orsay has Paris’ best collection of Impressionist art beginning from the Belle Epoque to the start of WWI. As well, it is home to marble and bronze sculpture. I focused on these, my favorites. The museum itself is a renovated train station, grand and light-filled, a real beauty with a gigantic “gare” clock that hangs on the northwest wall. Using Adine’s city artiste pass, I was in the museum within 10 minutes of hopping off the #69 bus.

I spent three hours listening to Rick Steves’ audio guide and wandering the museum but primarily the main, 2nd, and 5th floors. Manet, Renoir, Monet, Cassatt, Van Gogh, Cezanne, and Rodin, I saw them all. Highlights include the use of vibrant color and light, thick brush stroke applications of oil on canvas, techniques developed as these artists shared and practiced the new style which critics of the time rejected as mere “impressions” of their subjects. It was a thrill to see one after the other, gallery after gallery, of recognizable pieces as well as one in particular which I saw at the deYoung’s 1986 Impressionist exhibit, a copy I still have at home. After 29 years, we were reacquainted.

My outing wrapped up with a bit of window shopping in the 7th arrondissement, I caught the Metro to avoid a shower and headed back to safe and dry Saint-Mande. Tonight I had my first sit-down meal at a bistro near the house and the server was delightful and sweet. There I had a two hours of bliss and deliciousness starting at 6 p.m. with a Cosmo and ending with a cappuccino, no rushing since the regular dinner crowd wouldn’t arrive until 8 or 9 p.m.