Slept well in my double bed-alone!!This hotel is too hot like the previous one.
Unable to keep the window open as it rained overnight, however dawn bought blue skies.
Breakfast is a travesty for EU 17 so I pinch as much as I can for lunch, which isn't much.
Sue isn't home from work so we can't Skype, bugger.
Today is to be the Louvre, so I head off before 8 AM, then decide that I want to get to Rodin's Garden, and I should have gone yesterday, as it's almost back to my previous hotel and I'll follow that up with Musee D'Orsay.
The Louvre is very quiet at 8.50AM, the line is just forming, so I motor on across the Seine, past the D'Orsay, where the lines are small too, past the Musee de Legion of Honour, past the National Assembly (says he name dropping furiously) and find myself at Rodin's Garden and museum, 45 minutes to spare.
On the way I come across what must the the longest and most dangerous extension lead ever. My picture shows less than a quarter of it snaking across the street TWICE, along the footpath and around the corner. Talk about OH&S.
Walk around to the Hotel des Invalides, the old hospital for the poor, now the military museum, it's not open either, and I'm done with military for the moment.
The queue at Rodin's Garden is small still, so I join it, soon after it's 100 metres long.
Rodin's Garden is a delight, I think, however I am disappointed as apart from the Thinker in residence, the Kiss is not.
He was one prolific sculptor. The bronze wall is just fabulous and the picture really won't show just how intricate it is. He was certainly into buttocks, boobs and peni! But more on those later.
I head back to D'Orsay and the queue is 300 metres long-bugger!! I join it and decide I will bail out after 15 minutes, but it splutters forward at sufficient speed I stay with it. They are a great place to people watch.
We kept pace with a class of students from Italy. Each little subgroup had one person who was the Alpha, often a girl, and of course often the prettiest, certainly the loudest, who held most of the conversation. I watched another Italian on the phone. It is an expressive language, even if the other person couldn't see the hand and arm movements.
Where was I? Yes, D'Orsay.
I surrendered my bag, and into the vast museum, formally the main station of Paris, Gard D'Orsay.
A Degas exhibition was on "Le Nu". I didn't know that meant nude, and there was more of breasts and buttocks. Looking at his pictures it would be easy to think that all everyone did, well at least the women, was bathe, as that's what they were doing in just about every study. Clean lot!.
The main hall is filled with statuary, more breasts and buttocks, though mostly in marble.
The impressionists were on the top floor, the post impressionists at the Bureau de Poste, just kidding.
It was a smorgasbord of the who's who of art. Degas, of course, he's the nudey guy, Van Gogh, Gaugin, Manet, Monet, Cezanne, Renoir and not just their doodlings either, the good stuff.
Fouth floor was art nouveau, as was third and second.
The ground floor had the Degas Nudes Exhibition (packed) and an interesting gallery of a bloke called Courbet with one picture listed on their plan particularly-"L'Origine du Monde". Talk about breasts and buttocks and other bibs and bobs. Google it, though I warn you, MA 15+.
Oh and you are not allowed to take pictures in the museum.
Suddenly it was past 2PM, I hadn't had lunch, and I'd been walking nearly 3 hours.
My lunch was in my surrendered bag, so to eat I must exit. I was done so I exited and headed across the Seine to have my meagre lunch in full sunlight-what a day.
I meander around the Tuileries, along to the Place de la Concord, where there must be at least 50 tourist buses. Talk about spoil a view and a photo. I can see the Arc de Triomphe way up the Champs Elycees, my target tomorrow I think.
I head back through the Tuileries to the Louvre, as it's on may way home. The line is quite small, however my feet are done.
Anyway, it's free on the first Sunday of every month, and guess what next Sunday is?
So I head back to base, via a beer, grab my clothes dirty and have an exciting hour or so at they laundry, hopefully for the last time.
I've found a nice place to eat nearby, with a chirpy maitre de, so I go back there and indulge in some "pates de la moment", which turns out to be linguine. That and vin rouge and I am a happy man.
Well I do miss company (see reference to Skype above)
Picasa pictures
Unable to keep the window open as it rained overnight, however dawn bought blue skies.
Breakfast is a travesty for EU 17 so I pinch as much as I can for lunch, which isn't much.
Sue isn't home from work so we can't Skype, bugger.
Today is to be the Louvre, so I head off before 8 AM, then decide that I want to get to Rodin's Garden, and I should have gone yesterday, as it's almost back to my previous hotel and I'll follow that up with Musee D'Orsay.
The Louvre is very quiet at 8.50AM, the line is just forming, so I motor on across the Seine, past the D'Orsay, where the lines are small too, past the Musee de Legion of Honour, past the National Assembly (says he name dropping furiously) and find myself at Rodin's Garden and museum, 45 minutes to spare.
On the way I come across what must the the longest and most dangerous extension lead ever. My picture shows less than a quarter of it snaking across the street TWICE, along the footpath and around the corner. Talk about OH&S.
Walk around to the Hotel des Invalides, the old hospital for the poor, now the military museum, it's not open either, and I'm done with military for the moment.
The queue at Rodin's Garden is small still, so I join it, soon after it's 100 metres long.
Rodin's Garden is a delight, I think, however I am disappointed as apart from the Thinker in residence, the Kiss is not.
He was one prolific sculptor. The bronze wall is just fabulous and the picture really won't show just how intricate it is. He was certainly into buttocks, boobs and peni! But more on those later.
I head back to D'Orsay and the queue is 300 metres long-bugger!! I join it and decide I will bail out after 15 minutes, but it splutters forward at sufficient speed I stay with it. They are a great place to people watch.
We kept pace with a class of students from Italy. Each little subgroup had one person who was the Alpha, often a girl, and of course often the prettiest, certainly the loudest, who held most of the conversation. I watched another Italian on the phone. It is an expressive language, even if the other person couldn't see the hand and arm movements.
Where was I? Yes, D'Orsay.
I surrendered my bag, and into the vast museum, formally the main station of Paris, Gard D'Orsay.
A Degas exhibition was on "Le Nu". I didn't know that meant nude, and there was more of breasts and buttocks. Looking at his pictures it would be easy to think that all everyone did, well at least the women, was bathe, as that's what they were doing in just about every study. Clean lot!.
The main hall is filled with statuary, more breasts and buttocks, though mostly in marble.
The impressionists were on the top floor, the post impressionists at the Bureau de Poste, just kidding.
It was a smorgasbord of the who's who of art. Degas, of course, he's the nudey guy, Van Gogh, Gaugin, Manet, Monet, Cezanne, Renoir and not just their doodlings either, the good stuff.
Fouth floor was art nouveau, as was third and second.
The ground floor had the Degas Nudes Exhibition (packed) and an interesting gallery of a bloke called Courbet with one picture listed on their plan particularly-"L'Origine du Monde". Talk about breasts and buttocks and other bibs and bobs. Google it, though I warn you, MA 15+.
Oh and you are not allowed to take pictures in the museum.
Suddenly it was past 2PM, I hadn't had lunch, and I'd been walking nearly 3 hours.
My lunch was in my surrendered bag, so to eat I must exit. I was done so I exited and headed across the Seine to have my meagre lunch in full sunlight-what a day.
I meander around the Tuileries, along to the Place de la Concord, where there must be at least 50 tourist buses. Talk about spoil a view and a photo. I can see the Arc de Triomphe way up the Champs Elycees, my target tomorrow I think.
I head back through the Tuileries to the Louvre, as it's on may way home. The line is quite small, however my feet are done.
Anyway, it's free on the first Sunday of every month, and guess what next Sunday is?
So I head back to base, via a beer, grab my clothes dirty and have an exciting hour or so at they laundry, hopefully for the last time.
I've found a nice place to eat nearby, with a chirpy maitre de, so I go back there and indulge in some "pates de la moment", which turns out to be linguine. That and vin rouge and I am a happy man.
Well I do miss company (see reference to Skype above)
Picasa pictures
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