Blue Skies, Smiling at Me

Thursday, May 23

One day left on our Paris Museum Passes!  Every morning we discuss bus or metro?  The bus routes in our neighborhood skirt around places we would like to go.  We decide that in order to get the whole benefit of our passes, we will visit two museums:  la Musée de l’Orangerie and Musée Rodin.  

Tom and Mom decide they need to get more metro tickets:

With only one metro change, we emerge at Place de la Concorde.  The wind whips around us, blowing umbrellas inside out.  It still tries to rain.  Place de la Concorde is a wonderful spot in which you can see La Tour Eiffel, Pont Alexandre, down the Champs Elysées to l’Arc de Triomphe, and on a good day, all the way to the arc at La Défense. At the center of the place is an Egyptian Obelisk that stands on the spot of a main guillotine during the French Revolution. (Note:  the Paris obelisk came from the temple at Luxor that I visited in 2007.)

Green and gold fountains can offer a bit of coolness if the day is hot.  Only one fountain is running today.  To the north are the various embassies, Maxime’s, a Chanel shop, La Madeleine church, and Ladurée, a tea shop known for its macaroons.

We enter the gates to les Jardins des Tuileries where spring planting is going on.  The sun starts to come out as we reach the Orangerie.  The Orangerie was originally a green house for, among other things, orange trees.

Claude Monet chose the building as the perfect spot to display his large panels of Nymphéas, the lily ponds at Giverny.  We are once again disappointed to discover that photography is not allowed.  I first visited l’Orangerie in 2010 with my sister Dana, and we took beaucoups photos!  The museum guards are not being very attentive, and people are walking around with big Nikons and Canons.  I use the camera on my phone surreptitiously, just to show we had been there!  Mom says she doesn’t remember having seen all of the panels, so it is nice to know that we are having new experiences.

Downstairs are some other exhibits, but the main one is the Collection of Jean Walter and Paul Guillaume.  There is an interesting article in a 2001 issue of Vanity Fair (http://www.vanityfair.com/culture/features/2001/03/domenica-guillaume-walter-art-scandal) about Jean Walter, Paul Guillaume, and their wife Domenica Guillaume Walter.   On display are a dozen or more paintings by Renoir, then those of Cézanne, Gaugin, Picasso, Matisse, Modigliani, Rousseau, and Utrillo.

A Renoir, notice the two Degas paintings in the background.

My favorite are by Marie Laurencin, who was influenced by Matisse and Picasso.

a portrait of Coco Chanel:

On our way out of the museum, Mom takes a picture of the sun shining through the windows.  Seeing the sun this week is a big event!  Outside we take some time to enjoy the sunshine before going back the La Terrasse for lunch.  

On the way to the metro, we notice that some people are making a fuss over getting some photos of a man whom we do not recognize.  I take a picture anyway, and if anyone knows who this is, let us know!

The Ecole Militaire metro delivers us right to the door.  Delicious Soup a l’oignon takes off the chill . . . and it starts pouring down rain again.  We are at another window seat and notice quite a lot of military, gendarmeries, and police during our hour or so at the restaurant.  Some officers come in and sit at a table across from us.  Mom says, why are officers always so handsome?

Our waiter from Tuesday, Loic, winks at me again while he is on his way outdoors for a smoke.  Later, he comes to see us and says that he is hoping to move to Chicago for a job in a French restaurant.  Loic says he has ridden his bike by the Obamas’ house in Chicago.  Sarah, our waiter, whom Loic highly recommends, has some near misses in major spills—one was our carafe of wine and the other was coffee that would have marred one of the officer’s stiff and starch uniform!  Sarah winks at me several times, too, and I wonder if that is something the waiters are asked to do!  Too funny.

Down the metro once more, we take a bit of a round-about route to Musée Rodin.  Rain threatens.  Once inside the gardens, we follow a crowd to the Thinker.  People are standing back, taking pictures, until we start our family tradition of posing like Le Penseur for pictures.  Tom has his turn, then everyone else starts following our examples.  People have a hard time getting in the right position, so I become the director, positioning people’s hands and elbows.  I finally get a turn, and Mom has taken off for the other side of the garden.  

It starts to rain.  Inside!  Inside!  The museum is undergoing some renovation part of the purpose of which is to install an elevator.  We found the elevators at the d’Orsay and Orangerie to be life-savers, so this should be a welcome edition at the Rodin.  Much of the house, Hotel Biron where Roudin lived and sculpted, is closed up, and the exhibit is extremely disappointing.  

There are only a few of my favorite pieces on display, but thankfully the Camille Claudel pieces have their own room.  Where are the large sculptures, such as the big marble The Kiss? 

We visit the other side of the garden where the Burghers of Calais and the Gates of Hell emerge from the flowers.  It seems we are too early for the display of roses that makes the garden so beautiful in the summer.

On our way out, I notice another exhibit in the building you enter.  Here are the masterpieces!  And as I take a picture, a museum person tells me to stop.  Pourquoi?  Pictures are not going to damage the stone!  It just makes no sense. You could take pictures in the house, but not here! 

It is a long day, and our feet, knees, and legs are tired and sore.  Back in our neighborhood, Mom and I purchase our croissants, pain au chocolat, and baguette while Tom chooses our wine.  I head back to the apartment on my own but am stopped by the site of a beautiful brindle boxer curled up on a door mat in one of the shops.  His owner calls him over as I slowly push open the door, and I say that I have come to see the dog since I have 2 at home.  Eugene is just a sweetheart, and he has his eyes on my baguette.  I share pictures of my girls, take pictures of Eugene, and ask if Eugene can have a piece of bread.  He has been so patient!

By the time I leave Eugene, Mom and Tom are not far behind.  We have our evening supper of bread, meat, cheese, and wine, and it is ten o’clock before you know it!  Tomorrow is our last full day in Paris.