Paris Day 2-- First Museum Day!

We began the day with pastries and coffee from the Cafe du Marche on rue Cler. Happily, they have English menus, so we knew what we were ordering!! It was a rainy day, but not heavy rain, so we elected to walk to the Rodin Museum to purchase our passes. They would be good for several days and many museums. We went through Rodin's home, which is now a museum featuring his works, and other artists who were housed there also. The gardens were also impressive. One of the first sculptures you find as you enter the grounds, is The Thinker.

                    Here is Keith looking at the small version casting inside the house.

            and here is the version we are all familiar with, in a place of honor in the gardens.

The gardens were lush and manicured and gorgeous, and once again, we found an English speaking person who traded photo taking with me. Here we are at the gardens, we are facing Rodin's home, and the second photo is his home. Amazing. The grounds wound throughout the property with sculpture and flower beds popping up everywhere. It was a wonderful first museum experience, and one that we were allowed to photograph. That wasn't the case with the next museum we visited, the Musee' d'Orsay. We were able to enter with no waiting lines with our passes, we just had to go through a security screening, and we were in!

The Orsay houses works by Van Gogh, Monet, Manet, Degas and many others. It is three levels of jaw dropping art. There was a display of Van Gogh, and I walked right up to the self portrait, and just stood there. I don't know what I must have looked like, but another woman, also American saw me, and we just smiled at each other and said, " I know." with tears in our eyes. I couldn't really believe I was seeing these works in person. Close enough to touch, but I promise I didn't even try!!

This is the self portrait I was talking about. I did NOT take this photo! I would have been arrested I think, if I had tried. Security was very high in that museum. I was able to photograph a street musician outside the museum, playing violin.

After the Orsay, we were on museum overload, and decided to head back to rue Cler for dinner. We went back to the Cafe du Marche. Almost every place we went to eat was very crowded and the street cafes were even more so. They had stand up bars for customers who didn't get or didn't want to sit. It gave people more flexibility to greet friends as they walked past. It was a loud and high energy evening on rue Cler. There was very little seating inside, so in case of rain, which we had- they had clear plastic walls that roll down and velcro shut. Inventive. Something we began to notice right away was that LOTS of Parisians smoke. I was kind of surprised at that. By the time we finished our meal, in close quarters with several boisterous locals, we were ready to head to the Hotel and were very thankful that it was just a couple of blocks away!  Hoping to give our tired feet a rest, we went to bed early to prepare for day 3- The Arc de Triomphe, and the Champs Elysees.