When we exit, street musicians are entertaining on the Plaza outside the museum. It�s an ad-hoc party. We have trouble finding the nearest Metro Station. We finally get directions from a gendarme after unsuccessfully trying to get them from passers-by. I always suspect that many Parisians can understand and speak better English than they are willing to admit. Am I paranoid or what?
After a beer at our Pigalle neighborhood pub, we make arrangements to meet an old Hong Kong friend, Gregg Hoffman, and his girl friend Kim de Roos. She has a fascinating background. Born in Indonesia and adopted at two months by a Dutch couple, she was raised in Holland, speaks four languages and has an excellent sense of humor, a quality not always easily found in either Holland or Paris. When Tom said he was going to buy a lottery ticket, he asked her if she wished him luck. Without missing a beat, she said, �No way.� When he asked why, she replied, �Because the taxes you would have to pay would support the war in Iraq.�
We have dinner in a regional restaurant in the Boulevard St Michel area. Unfortunately, I�ve forgotten the name. We were introduced to a great red wine served chilled, Brouilly, fruity without being sweet. The food is terrific, the conversation spirited as Tom does his best imitation of a na�ve tourist, which instigates disagreement and fun. Some of our neighboring diners who speak English seem to be enjoying the conversation, also.
After dinner we have an unnecessary nightcap at a local bar. We grab a taxi back to our hotel. The driver pulls an old New York City trick on us and drives in a huge circle so we come at Pigalle in the opposite direction from St Michel. It is such a beautiful evening and I am feeling so mellow that I can�t get upset at his little ruse. We roll the windows down and drink in the cool night air. Back at the hotel, I discover the previous night�s lovers are missing so I easily fall asleep. We are moving on to Normandy, tomorrow.
The last of the three, Venus de Milo, is also surrounded by hundreds of people. It occurs to me that I have no reason to be surprised. It�s August. It�s the Louvre. What did I expect, leisurely viewing? I take my photos and move on. I next visit the �monster gallery.� This series of rooms has most of the huge paintings by Eugene Delacroix, Paolo Caliari (Sometimes known as Veronese), Jacque-Louis David, and Teodore Gericault among many others. They seem to mostly focus on Classical, Biblical or Military themes.
With my limited time, I must pick and choose. I skip the Italian paintings, even though they are considered �the core� of the museum. I�ve just spent 10 days in Italy. Instead I visit the basement to look at exhibits covering the period the Louvre was a castle rather than a palace.
I only have time for one wing so I choose the Richelieu which seems to be the �French� wing. I quickly visit the sculpture area in the Cour Marly followed by a visit to the apartments of Napoleon III. It demonstrates 19th century luxury at its best. I decide, because we will be visiting the Musee d�Orsay after this, to look at French painting from the 14th to the mid 19th century, that is everything before the Impressionists. It�s quite a task, sixty rooms of paintings extending into the Denon Wing. I don�t know if I make it to every room but I am able to see just about every painting I want to see, finishing up with Corot�s �Souvenir of Mortefontaine."
It�s already 2:30 PM and I�m late meeting Tom. We are both very hungry and decide to grab a baguette in the ground floor caf�. The place is incredibly crowded but the waiter is very efficient and �cool� so we get our food and are on our way by 3:00 PM.
We walk the length of the Jardin des Tuileries. I take many photos. Tom and I are both impressed with the beauty and the views as we stroll along. We cross the Seine on the Pont de la Concorde and backtrack to the Musee d�Orsay, passing the Assemblee Nationale on the way.
The Musee d'Orsay was once the main train station serving Paris has been totally redone to house late 19th and early 20th century painting and sculpture including the Impressionists. The building could be considered a work of art in itself and is appropriate to house its collections since so many of the artists used the convenience of the train system to visit places outside Paris and make painting on site an accepted method, as opposed to working in a studio from sketches.
The queue to get in is very long even for Museum Pass holders. They are trying to keep the place from being overloaded, an impossible task since almost every tourist visits this museum because of the Impressionists. We finally enter. We�re tired but manage to find an elevator to the upper floors where the most popular exhibits are housed, including the Impressionists and the Post-Impressionists. The quality and the quantity of the exhibits are overwhelming. It�s almost too much.
In retrospect, my memory of the exhibits is a blur. There are so many recognizable masterpieces that, on top of what I saw in the Louvre, I slip into overload mode. If I had it to do over, I would not visit both places on the same day: so much to see and so little time.
We have an early train to Caen in Normandy from the Gare St- Lazare. The station would be within walking distance if I could practice some self-restraint in packing. However, with my 70-pound duffle and 20-pound backpack, we decide to take a taxi. The desk clerk warns us that it could be difficult getting someone to take us on such a short trip even though, theoretically, they can�t refuse a fare. I imagine that if we found someone like last night�s driver, we would not have a problem. He�d just drive around until he got the meter to what he thought he deserved. We consider the �user unfriendly� Metro but neither of us wants to negotiate the steps and the train change. So we strike out from the hotel picking our way around the left-over dregs of a Pigalle Friday night.
(Continued)
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