Wednesday, February 2, 2011

Wednesday, February 2, 2011--Our Last Day

This morning we walked over to the Louvre and took some final pictures.  We then moved through the Tuileries and down to Place de la Concorde and entered L'Orangerie Museum.




birds standing on frozen fountain

This has been our only museum visit and the crowds were minimal, and we quickly entered, though the security scanner repeatedly indicated I was a threat.  Mr Dave, Islamo-Fascist terrorist!

We went into the basement to see the collection donated by Paul Guiallme of modern paintings by Picasso, Henri Rousseau, Renoir, Cezanne, Modigliani, Chaim Soutine, Maurice Utrillo, and Alfred Sisley.

The main attraction is displayed upstairs in two rooms with Claude Monet's Nympheas, huge paintings that sweep around four walls in a pair of rooms that depict the water lilies at his garden at Giverny.  These are gorgeous and unlike anything we have ever seen, though this is our second visit to this museum.





After buying some prints, we headed home for lunch.  Later, we packed our bags and decided to take a brief stroll through the Marais.  We had no specific destination, but decided, after seeing a street sign, to find the Picasso Museum, which we visited five years ago.  A sign sent us in one direction, which we followed for many blocks.  We finally gave up and headed in the opposite direction for many more blocks, again no luck.  We did manage to find the Pompidou again--always whenever we are not looking for it--and finally we happened on a large avenue--Rue Turbigo, the very street that got us so lost our first night in Paris.  We wandered more and then suddenly happened on a second Picasso sign, which finally led us to it, right in our back yard.  Along the way we saw more interesting neighborhoods and some nice buildings.

Hotel Sale--National Archives

Picasso Museum

Picasso detail

private park, Square Cain
After dinner at our favorite local restaurant, we headed off to Place de la Concorde to catch the Eiffel Tower's lights.  We finally managed to get them and some other gorgeous sights.





Grand Palais

Place Vendome

Bastille

Finally, Mary caught me in a moment of grief over our au revoir to Paris.



No comments:

Post a Comment