Day 5 Musée d'Orsay

I woke up the morning of Wednesday 29 December and said "We haven't seen the Eiffel Tower,  Arc de Triomphe or Place de la Concorde (site of the guillotine)..." So, we got ready for a day of sight-seeing after another beautiful breakfast served to us by the delightful lady, Shanti, who called me Mama ("Mama, you like?): pain au chocolat & raspberry conserve, fresh orange juice, coffee & cream, and more!

We hopped on the Métro and headed out to Place de la Concorde, which is a huge square and where you can see all the sites by standing and turning around 360 degrees. You can look down the Champs-Élysées through the Arc de Triomphe. The Ferris Wheel of Paris (Grande Roue de Paris) is also there, but it was so foggy all day you couldn't see past the base of the Eiffel Tower.

We walked the length of the Jardin des Tuileries, that must be beautiful in the spring & summer, and crossed the Seine to ...

... Musée d'Orsay
 

The art is in a renovated train station - It was all so beautiful I came close to tears ~ a glorious hall with an enormous gilded clock at one end.  It was filled with art by Renoir, Cézanne, Van Gogh, Degas, Rodin... Amazing!!  No photos were allowed, but we had each taken a couple before we realized this.  I bought a souvenir book as a remembrance.  

After we toured the museum we were quite thirsty & hungry, but the museum restaurants had very long lines so we took off walking, ending up at Brasserie Terminus Nord where our 30€ lunch included my "Coke" for 6.90€, which is around $10! All we could do was laugh... The bread and cheese was so wonderful, though, and it was such as fun, bustling cafe.  It was the best Coke I've ever had :)

Since we were right across from the Louvre, we crossed the river and went back to find da Vinci's painting The Virgin and Child with Saint Anne.  I thought I looked for it diligently during our 1st visit, but was sad to discover it is not currently being shown.   

 We then got completely lost in Sully, in the Medieval Louvre and huge Egyptian collection. We were up and down stairs over and over...  We were completely DONE!  We had a lemonade, then, thanks to Bill's cane, we got a ride in the coolest open-air elevator up the Pyramid to exit (check out the video!).  Bill's lift & cane helped us line-jump every huge museum cue.  As the week progressed, the crowds got larger (closer to New Year's Eve).  I mastered the "concerned wife" look to avoid any disgruntled non-believers...

For dinner we returned to Le Flore en L'Ile for a repeat of French onion soup, bread, cheese and wine.  We are not tiring of that repast!  Relaxing and lovely end of the day.

Bill's POV:

Place de la Concorde - Orsay - Brasserie Terminus - Louvre

Site of execution by guillotine!  Could not tell about its past.  Orsay is a stunning collection of Impressionist era paintings and sculpture.  They did more in sculpture in marble than I had known, mostly with classical themes.  Cafe was a classic busy and crowded place, very good,café crème in a soup bowl (size large for an American?). Louvre was a maze of Egyptian artifacts.