Museums on the Weekend

The next day, Saturday, we hit the ground running to make the most of our two-day museum passes.  First the Musee d'Orsay, and then the Louvre.  

What is there to say that hasn't already been said by everyone who goes there? All of Paris is awesome in the true meaning of the word.

The Orsay has such an amazing collection of impressionists, neo-impressionists, and 19th and early 20th century works that it is breathtaking!  It is like the Louvre in that paintings that a whole museum would be built for anywhere else are just part of an ordinary hall full of equally wonderful ones.  The impressionists wing actually made my heart beat faster they are so beautiful.  While we were there they had a special exhibit of Van Gogh that was borrowed from about 15 different museums.  It was amazing! There will probably never be another time or place to see so many together again.  The exhibit was framed by the works and writings of another mentally unstable artist, Antonin Artaud, who had famously written about Van Gogh as part of his therapy when he was institionalized for nine years.  There were quotes from him about Van Gogh that were very interesting as one mentally ill artist studied another.  Like Van Gogh, he also killed himself when the psychic pain became too great. The exhibit is named after Artaud's work, The Man Suicided by Society.

Of course there were signs and guards everywhere telling people not to take pictures, eat or drink, talk on your phone, or point.  I couldn't figure out why you couldn't point at first, but then I realized that usually people point at something and turn their heads to look at the person they are talking to and trying to get to follow their pointing finger.  Leads to other patrons getting their eyes poked out by pointing art enthusiasts.  And of course I saw many many people taking pictures and talking on their phones and pointing.  You can take pictures of the huge beautiful clock inside the front of the museum, that used to be a railway station, and from the back of another clock high up in one of the galleries.

Looking through the clock to Paris below.

Lori and I outside the Orsay. 

We headed towards the Louvre,

and stopped for a fabulous lunch at a little place  down the block.

Our food was amazing! I had a warm goat cheese salad that I will be forever searching for from this point onward.

The Louvre has totally given up the photo fight.  Apparently no matter how many signs you have or guards there are, all people think the rules are for "those other people."

Again, paintings that would merit a whole museum being built to showcase and house them are just part of the Renaissance hall here.

And now a word about crowds.  It doesn't look like it from my pictures, but the crowds in Paris were like nothing I had ever seen before.  Many of the museums' halls were so crowded that you could only go with the stream down the middle, never getting close to the art, no less standing and contemplating a work.  The park in front of the Louvre was a zoo of people, immigrants selling made-in-China souvenirs, street performers, people playing frisbee, people picnicking and sunbathing, hordes of strollers and backpacks.  It was crazy! Had we thought about that, we would have shifted some of our itinerary to travel on the weekend instead. 

Being the savy world travelers we are now, we will know better next time.  Also, if I ever get the chance to do something like this ever again in my whole life ever, I'll try to not go during the summer when everybody else does.