The Orangerie has a new exhibit of Frieda Kahlo and Diego Rivera works. Unfortunately the exhibit opened on the day we left Paris so we did not get to see it. The museum also has other paintings as part of its permanent collection. The Orangerie used to be the home of many great Impressionist paintings before the Musee d Orsay was developed.
We then went to the Rodin Museum. It is composed of Rodin's house and gardens. Since it was free the line to the house was too long but the gardens were beautiful. The sculptures look so natural.
The interesting thing about Rodin's sculptures is that they are made from molds and thus there are many of them. I understand that Philadelphia has a Rodin Museum and I am embarrassed to admit that I have never been there.
We then went to St Chapelle, one of my favorite places in Paris. It was the Kings Chapel and the stained glass is amazing. However like so many historic sites these days, it is being renovated. Some of the magic is on hold but behold the pictures, which do not do it justice.
Sundays like Saturday can be a challenge to eat out. We walked around our hotel and many places were closed. We found a local bistro and had dinner. It had ambiance. We had a salad nicoise and shrimp with pasta that was quite tasty. We also had a bottle of Brouilly from the Beaujolais region. The wine was good. More on Beaujolais at a later time. The wine and the meal were quite reasonable.
The Louvre has the famous modern pyramid entrance designed by IM Pei. It collection of art is unreal. We skipped the Mona Lisa and the Venus De Milo and slummed it with Rembrandts, Vermeers and lots of antiquities.
We the went down to the Seine and found the Batobus.batobus.com It is a river boat that makes 8 stops on the river. You can get off and on whenever you want. For 3 Euros additional you get a second day. We did this and had 2 days of relaxing on the Seine.
For dinner we went to les 110 de Taillevent, http://taillevent.com/les-110-de-taillevent-brasserie/a bistro from the owners of Taillevent. The bistro was recommended by the concierage at the hotel. I usually don't ask hotels for food recommendations but the concierage was very nice and had tried to make us reservations at another place without success. The restaurant's conceit is that it has 110 wines by the glass in 4 categories by price. 7 Euros and under; 14 Euros and under; 28 Euros and under and over 28 Euros. Glasses are 7cl or 14 cl.
The menu was OK and 4 wines are matched with every dish. The forgot to give us the menu of the day so we needed to ask. The service was weird as we had about 5 people helping us which is unusual in France. We had steak and seafood brandade. The steak was very salty and the seafood brandade was a joke. It was 2 pieces of octopus and 2 mussels on mashed potatoes. The wines were interesting.
We had 5 wines by the glass. We started with Champagne Brut Conversation SA J_L Vergnon. It was very good. At 13 Euros a glass it was also expensive. We then had a Macon- Uchizy, Les Maranches 2011 Heritiers du Comte Lafon; Jurancon sec "Cuvee marie" 2011 Clos Uroulat; Crozes-Hermitage 2010 Domaine Graillot; Luberon "Le Claux 2010 Domaine Bastide du Claux. The Crozes-Hermitage was very funky; the other wines were quite nice and reasonably priced.
For dessert we had a martini cup with cream on the bottom, then fresh strawberries, then a chocolate disk, then pureed raspberries. The waiter poured hot fudge in the middle. Instead of overflowing, the hot fudge melted the chocolate disk and created a depression in the middle of the glass. This dessert was wonderful and almost made the meal good. The total bill was our most expensive meal at around $160. I would not go back to this place.
