Fun fact: there is not much open on New Years Day. We had gotten back to the flat around two or three am, so I had a late start. However, my only real plan of the day was to go to the only place that I could find open - the Musée d'Orsay.
The Musée d'Orsay is a museum in Paris, France, on the left bank of the Seine. It is housed in the former Gare d'Orsay, a Beaux-Arts railway station built between 1898 and 1900. The museum holds mainly French art dating from 1848 to 1915, including paintings, sculptures, furniture, and photography. It houses the largest collection of impressionist and post-impressionist masterpieces in the world, by painters including Monet, Manet, Degas, Renoir, Cézanne, Seurat, Sisley, Gauguin and Van Gogh. Many of these works were held at the Galerie nationale du Jeu de Paume prior to the museum's opening in 1986.
On the bridge, crossing the Seine. As you can tell, the weather wasn't particularly nice while I was in Paris - other than my last day there, it was largely overcast and on/off again raining.
The Louvre on the opposite bank from the Musée d'Orsay.
There are a lot of bridges crossing the river, some just pedestrian, some both.
Again, looking at the Louvre from the bridge.
This is probably one of my favourite/sketchiest things I saw in Paris - they had quite a few vendors selling what I think were roast chestnuts, which they were roasting over barrels of fire. In a shopping cart. And they were almost as common as the guys hawking little statues of the Eiffel tower!
From inside the museum - photographs were not allowed (I think I was one of the only people observing that rule), but this room did not contain any artwork so I figured it was okay to take a picture from the inside of the clockface, looking out over Paris. I got to see quite a few interesting pieces, but the line to get in took about an hour and a half, so by the time I got in, I was already pretty tired. Got to see quite a few Van Goghs though.
And from the outside, where the above photographs were taken...
After leaving the museum, I headed back to David's, where we grabbed some dinner and then watched Breaking Bad - a fairly chill evening, which was nice.
Tom has happy memories of buying roasted chestnuts wrapped in a paper cone from street vendors in Vienna. We make them at home but Tom tells me they're not nearly as good!
ReplyDeleteI love the clock and the fact that people are peering through it from inside. It must have been wonderful to see all the original artwork! Were you tempted to try the chestnuts? I had them once and that was enough for me. Perhaps they taste better in Paris (or Vienna)!
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