Bonjour - Debbie's parents arrived a couple days ago and have been staying with us. Today, we made our way to Gare du Nord with their 3 suitcases to put them on a train to Orry la Ville where they will join their Vantage Cruise tour and spend a couple nights in a hotel. The train ride itself was probably the shortest segment of our excursion (only 18 minutes). The walk up rue Mesnil and then the stairs up and down into and out of #2 metro took longer. But - we made it! Also, the #2 does connect to Gare du Nord, but it's a long walk to it. Regardless, we were there before the posted the track, and in plenty of time!
Debbie and I decided to go to Musee d'Orsay for the day. It has been one of our favorites since our first visit over a decade ago. If you love impressionism, d'Orsay is your place - Degas, Toulouse Lautrec, Manet, Monet, Renior, Pissarro, Sisley, Cezanne, Gauguin and Van Gogh. I love that stuff! Van Gogh's Starry Night over the Rhone is one of my favorites, but it is hard to choose.
We wandered quite a while. One thing in different this visit - in the past you could take pictures (and I have many). Nowadays, there is no more picture-taking in the museum! It's nice since you can just focus on seeing the art (as opposed to snapping everything). And, since you can easily find the images on line, you don't really need to take the picture... We rounded off the visit with some bread and cheese at the museum cafe.
We planned to return to the apartment on the #1 metro which we could pick up at Concorde - well, I don't know what was going on, but there was a huge police presence in the area. And both Concorde and Clemenceau metro stop were closed, and we couldn't even cross over by the US Embassy. We had to go up to Sainte-Honore all the way to Matignon before we could cut back to Franklin Roosevelt metro stop and go home. We did get to see the Presidential Palace again, along with a dress guard I haven't seen before. And along Matignon, we saw art gallaries that had some Marc Chagall paintings for sale. One even had a Picasso! That's just crazy isn't it? (No prices).
Au revior!
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