Musee d'Orsay

I was really looking forward to our visit to the Musée D'Orsay. In addition to housing the largest collection of impressionist and post-impressionist masterpieces in the world, the building itself is intriguing. It was originally a train station built to accomodate passengers for the 1900 World Fair. The building was a disappointment to many people who were expecting it to have a modern design rather than a Beaux-Arts one.

As the years passed, trains became longer and the station's short platforms became unsuitable. In 1970 the building was slated for demolition, but appreciation for it had grown by then and a plan evolved to turn it into a museum instead.

We had purchased timed entry tickets online, and we carefully plotted our route. Google Maps told us it would take about 20 minutes to travel from our hotel to the museum on the metro so we allowed 45. What Google Maps didn't tell us was that the station under Notre Dame was still closed because of the fire at the cathedral 2-1/2 years earlier.

We spent quite a bit of time wandering about in a hopelessly confused state before jumping on another train that I thought would take us closer to the museum. In reality, it took us further away. We emerged from the subway and scurried several blocks, but by the time we finally arrived, we were about 45 minutes late. Since our tickets stated that the grace period was only 30 minutes, I was sure we'd be turned away, but the guard just glanced at them and pointed us to the short line rather than the long one which snaked back and forth across the terrace.

When we finally got inside we were so exhausted we just sat by the entrance for awhile recovering.

Eventually, we headed upstairs to the 5th Floor to the galleries we most wanted to see. Unfortunately, hordes of other people had the same idea. The crowds were so intense, it was pretty much impossible to enjoy the experience, but if you decide to visit, you can catch a glimpse of these masterpieces.

You can also view Paris through the original train station clock.

After battling our way through several galleries, I realized we hadn't seen any paintings by Van Gogh. We checked the map and headed to their location. Unfortunately, that gallery was even more crowded than the others had been. It's not an exageration to say that you could barely move so we gave up and headed for the gift shop.

I had thought that the crowd size would be managed much like it was at the Museo del Prado in Madrid where tickets are sold on line and a limited number of people without tickets are slowly admitted, but that isn't the case at Musée d'Orsay. Next time I visit this museum, I'll do more research on the times when the museum is the least crowded.

Unfortunately, this was our last evening in Paris. We had one more full day, but since our return flight was scheduled to leave very early the day after that, we had booked a room at a hotel at the airport. We had special plans for the evening, though. A friend had recommeded Le Chalet des Îles Restaurant which sits on an island in the Bois de Boulogne.

We were quite proud of ourselves because we had managed to make a reservation by composing an email with our limited French. We planned to take the metro, but our experiences at the Notre Dame station that morning had shown us that would be difficult so we called an Uber. Our driver turned out to be a charming young man who provided us with the most relaxed ride in a motor vehicle we experienced during this trip.

You have to board the boat you can see in the picture above to cross the water to the restaurant.

The restaurant was almost empty when we arrived because it was about 6:30, and the French prefer to eat much later. As the evening passed, the restaurant slowly filled up. Walt had the steak frites and I had curried salmon which turned out to be more like a creamy soup than a curry.

It was such a pleasant evening. We savored the atmosphere and talked about our adventures.

Unfortunately, the Uber ride back was with the craziest driver we had during the trip. He actually drove backwards at a high rate of speed when confronted with a bus that was blocking our way. We felt lucky to be alive when we arrived safely back at the hotel against all odds.