More of the similar today. Still getting over the jetlag, we slept through the alarm and got a late start. We went to the Guimet Museum of Asiatic Arts first to see what was collected from places we've traveled to in Asia. It was curious to find that both we and artifacts from the Champa ruins in My Son have made the journey from that mountaintop in Vietnam to this room in Paris. We also re-acquainted ourselves with the woodblock prints that we saw so much of in Japan years ago.
After that we went by foot across the Seine, under the Eiffel Tower (not up it) and back east toward the center of town. After lunch at a bistro in the diplomatic district, we went to the Musee D'Orsay, which picks up in the mid-19th century where the Louvre leaves off. It's housed in a renovated fin de siecle train station and is on a more human scale that makes it much easier to appreciate the art. We saw some of the best-known -- and quite moving -- works from the French Impressionist and post-Impressionist eras. We didn't see as much as a typical visitor might, though, because a lot of the space is closed for renovations right now. We did enjoy quite a bit the special exhibit, which was on the career of Jean-Leon Gerome. One of his gladiator pictures in particular looked very familiar as soon as I walked in the room and saw it. I stood staring at for a long time wondering where I had seen it before. It turned out to be on loan from the Yale University Art Gallery where we've see in many times.
That took up all of the day and was enough art for us. We spent the evening walking up Boulevard St. Germain, checking out the shops and looking for someplace to eat. We still aren't having great luck with the food, being too disorganized, tired, distracted, illiterate in French and cheap to do much better than to fall into tourist traps. I'm still getting by on a lot of croque monsieur and croque madame. It's not healthy, but I figure I'm burning plenty of calories with all the walking we're doing.
Tomorrow we have a medieval history day planned.
-Robert
