Perfect weather - day of culture

A wonderful sleep last night - we both woke about 6.30…I can’t remember when I have had 8 and half hours without waking!! And Amr 9 and half hours, and he thanks all for messages and says he is now 105%!!

Today we had bookings at the Musée d’Orsay and Pompidou which was sort of by accident on the same day, but worked well anyway. It is quite cold in the mornings, lovely, but warms up quickly and gets hot by afternoon, today and yesterday, so you spend the day peeling off layers. A perfect Paris Saturday, lots of people out and about, but not unbearably crowded. And surprisingly it was so easy to get into the museums…not mile long queues, just comfortable and civilised.

So first we went to d’Orsay, amazingly uncrowded and pleasant, but when we went in to the special exhibit on the history of the beginning of Impressionism it was busier. Very interesting, and paintings of many original impressionists who are no longer well known or even heard of. Emerged from there, bought a Vietnamese baguette, yum, and sat in our favourite Place Dauphine to eat. It was also many other people’s favourite place, and more crowded than we’ve seen, being a beautiful Saturday afternoon.

Now restored, we walked to Pompidou centre, and before starting on the art we sat in the cafe and had coffee/chocolate. The special exhibit there was works of Brancusi, a sculptor. Beautiful, simple…then we went into the modern art section. One special thing for us was the Christian Dior famous outfit from his first showing that we had seen on the Netflix series about him, The New Look! It was all good, but we felt done and wandered back for some downtime before dinner.

After an hour or so, totally restored, we walked to Le Petit Celestin, a perfect bistrot where we went a year ago…our booking was for 7.45 and it was light and sunny and my memory of it a year ago was in the dark, cosy and wonderful…this time, still wonderful but everyone outside on the pavement as the sun set..(maybe last year it was before daylight saving??) great meal..we shared an entree of asparagus, feta, rocket, and for mains Amr had fish and I had kidneys, and we shared an ile flottante for dessert!! All perfect…now back and ready for another big sleep! My Apple Watch says I have walked 16 kms today, so we are in training for our walks!Read more