Paris – Day 6 can be found here.
Another leisurely wake-up, followed by a trip to café to play Dungeons & Dragons. Then back to the apartment so my wife could take our daughter shopping. She found a lovely dress at Jacadi. It was expensive, but not as expensive as I expect it will be if we come back to Paris when she’s a teenager…
Lunch was again baguette sandwiches, and then at around 1 pm we left for the Musee d’Orangerie to see Monet’s waterlilies.
First, we crossed over the Pont Alexandre III bridge, whose four golden statues represent France’s four “fames” – the Sciences, Commerce, the Age of Charlemagne, and Contemporary France.
And it was great to see so many buds out on the trees:
And check out an eclectic statue of tulips – which my son swore looked like balloons:
But soon we were on to the Waterlillies themselvs:
This is a beautiful spot – two large oval rooms which contain near-360 views of these extraordinary paintings. And although the guests were not entirely adhering to Monet’s request that this be a quiet area for meditation, it was nonetheless quite peaceful.
Again, fascinating to learn that Monet himself often fell prey to his own doubts on the project, and destroyed several of the panels himself. He continued to work and re-work on the paintings, and it was only after Monet’s death that his friend Clemenceau put the plan into action.
I was also surprised to hear that these paintings were not met with much public enthusiasm at the time, and that public enthusiasm for Impressionism was waning at the time in favour of the new avante-garde movements at the time.
It wasn’t until after the Second World War – during which one of the panels was damaged during the Allied liberation of Paris – that serious interest began to emerge.
The project occupied nearly 30 years (!!!) of Monet’s life, from the late 1890s until his death in 1926 at the age of 86.
Elsewhere in the Orangerie we also discovered the work of Robert Ryman, who cited Monet as one of his major influences. Ryman’s work really resonated with our son, who particularly enjoyed the emphasis on structure and of the underlying medium – thick or thin, flush to the wall or apart – as a significant part of the artwork.
I enjoyed it for what it was, while my wife mostly found it to be a series of white canvases.
They had a fascinating video about Ryman and his creative process at the Orangerie. I haven’t been able to find the exact same video, but this version includes much regarding his work and his process.
There were also some additional pieces by Monet at the end.
We had some time before our designated slot at the Louvre, so we wanted to go to Angelina’s for a café break. Unfortunately, the line up was out the door so we did a quick Google Maps check – Café Kitsun looked good, so we stopped there to get some delicious cookies and iced chocolate:
Artistically shot to hide the fact that a bite has been taken out of it
After, we went to Jardin de Tuilleries to soak up the spring sunshine, along with hundreds of similarly-minded Parisians.
We then went back to the Louvre to check out the Egyptian artifacts exhibit, which we had missed during our previous trip.
You may recall that we’d questioned earlier whether it was indeed quieter at 4 pm on a Friday as Context Tours had suggested. Well, it appears that claim was very much correct:
Not pictured – the way this line stretches all the way out and around to where we’re standing
We had timed tickets, so we still managed to get inside the museum roughly 5 minutes after the time we’d booked.
We then went over to the Egypt exhibit, which has some world-class artifacts:
The kids very much enjoyed learning about all the different Egyptian gods and goddesses, studying the hieroglyphs, and seeing the ancient Egyptian funerary goods – particularly the jewelry. My son particularly enjoyed seeing the statues of cats, and the ancient Egyptian dice and games.
I think my personal favourite were these lit-up walls, which we almost missed until we were on our way out:
It very much reminded me of when my wife and I were visiting the Valley of the Kings during our last trip to Egypt, before our kids were born.
Time flew by, and the next we knew it was time for us to head back to the apartment to get changed for dinner.
We needed to move quickly – it was 5:15 pm, and we had to be at the Eiffel Tower 30 minutes early for our 6 pm reservation at Madame Brasserie.
At least that’s what we’d been told. As it turned out, the ticket booth didn’t even open until 15 minutes before. Also – we had to go from security checkpoint, to the ticket booth, to the elevator, and then up to Madame Brasserie. It feels like they could’ve managed to skip one of these steps, somehow, but no matter – we were soon on our way to the first floor.
(The Michelin starred restaurant – Jules Verne – is on the second floor of the tower, but we wouldn’t have been guaranteed a window seat. Plus, we’re not sure the kids would’ve been ready for the food. Maybe next time – never hurts to have a reason to go back.)
We also tried playing the Madame Brasserie mystery game, but we hadn’t been sure when we were supposed to start it. We thought it should be something we’re doing while waiting in line, but it took longer than expected. Then – when we did get near the end – it turned out that we needed to upload a photo from something at ground level. Oh well… even if we didn’t submit ‘proof’, they were still happy to have solved the mystery.
The dinner was expensive – roughly 1,000 Euro for all four of us, though that included four courses and a half bottle of champagne each for the adults. The kids got some super-fancy non-alcoholic cocktails that would’ve easily cost 12 Euro each if they hadn’t been included.
It was expensive, and touristy… and absolutely worthwhile. I mean, look at that view.
We each had foie gras for our starter:
Followed by meat pie as a second course:
And then myself, my wife, and our daughter had Beef Bourguignon:
While my son had the chicken with cheese cannelloni:
Then it was time for desserts, which included the perennial favourite, profiteroles:
As well as the Mont Citron:
And baba with calvados:
And lastly, some petit fours:
More like petit twos given how much we’d already eaten before I took this photo…
I forgot to take a picture of the restaurant itself, so instead please enjoy this artistic reflection which mostly shows what the restaurant looks like on the iniside:
After dinner, the lovely couple sitting behind us came up to the kids and told them that when they had kids, they’d gone to a nice dinner out in Vegas at the Venetian and a couple had come up to them to say that their kids had been really well-behaved, and gave each of their kids some money as a way of congratulating them.
Well, this couple wanted to pay that forward – so they gave each of our kids 10 Euro.
Needless to say, our kids were thrilled, and promised to pay it forward themselves at some point in the future. Very sweet of them.
We then spent some time exploring the first floor of the Eiffel tower, and this spectacular view.
It was equally beautiful from down below:
My only complaint is that the exit from the tower was beset by hawkers selling junky plastic towers (“One Euro! One Euro!”). That was worse than anything we saw in the Medina of Marrakech.
Though I have to salute the clever entrepreneur that had a ring light, costumes and a turn table – and who was helping people get the perfect Instagram photo of themselves in front of the tower. Very clever.
We tromped back to our apartment – which was thankfully not very far away – and promptly fell asleep. It promises to be another beautiful day tomorrow – as well as our last full day in Paris – and we want to make the most of it.
Continue reading Paris – Day 8.