Tuesday, October 29, 2013

Paris and Lyon, Part 2

Paris Day 3  The museums in Paris are free on the first Sunday of a month. We went to the Orangerie, http://www.musee-orangerie.fr/pages/page_id19015_u1l2.htm a small museum near the Place de Concorde on the edge of the Tuilleries. The Orangerie has Monet's Water Lilies. These are magnificent paintings that take up 2 huge rooms. the museum was the original place as designed by Monet for the paintings but the rooms were not maintained. The museum was closed for a number of years but has been refurbished. The web site gives a virtual view of the paintings which give a glimpse of their majesty. The Museum of Modern Art in NY also has Water Lilies by Monet but they are not presented as well and I don't think compare to the Paris paintings.

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.



 Orangerie



Place de Concorde

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  Thinker








 Gates of Hell










 Rodin's House
Invalides (Napoleon's Tomb)

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.













We then went to Berthillon  http://www.berthillon.fr/for the best ice cream on earth. Small cones with remarkable flavors for 2.50 Euros. We had green apple and chocolate cones. The store is on the Ile St Louis, which is next to Ile de la Cite where Notre Dame is located. Interestingly other small stores on the Ile also serve Berthillon ice cream for the same price. We had lunch at a small creperie on Ile St Louis. It was reasonable and decent.

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.
Day 4  We went to the Louvre.http://www.louvre.fr/en The Louvre is a cool place. The lines to enter from the main outside courtyard were very long but you can enter the museum from an underground mall. This entrance is easy and there are no lines. You can buy tickets easily. They sell a museum pass in Paris that is very helpful and  pricey. One big advantage is that with the pass, you do not wait on any lines. Even on free Sunday, people with the pass got in faster to the Orangerie than we did without the pass.

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.

 

 



 


 


 


 


 

 


 



 





 

 
 

 


 


 


 


 


 

 


 


 




 

 



 

 



 

Keep in mind that all this time in Paris, we are stopping at every Patisserie  and food shop and nibbling our way around the city. We also used the Metro all the time. We would walk and then hop on a Metro and walk some more. We had some more ice cream at Berthillon; this time green apple and passion fruit. We had lunch at Galleries Lafayette, the Bloomingdales of Paris. The store has a food hall with all types of food and restaurants and it has a cafeteria and other restaurants on the top floors of the store. We went to the cafeteria and has some lunch. Food is okay but you can help yourself and find a table easily.

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 Tailleventhttp://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.
More Paris and Lyon to come. Meanwhile Thanksgiving is coming soon. John Fogerty concert this weekend in Atlantic City. Enjoy.

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