Musee d'Orsay, Paris

We arrived back in Paris around 1:30 pm and found that our hotel room was not ready. We were able to store our bags in our friends' room and then we caught the RER train to the Musee d'Orsay. This museum used to be the main railway station of Paris, but when the city outgrew the size of this building, it experienced several reincarnations such as being used in the war, and later to help homeless people. Finally it found its niche as a museum for impressionist art.
The building still has its curved, glass roof and it sports two huge glass clocks on its facade that looks out onto the Seine.
I took Doug to see the clocks first because they're a photographer's dream. Taking pictures of the clocks with the light and the cityscapes peaking through was so much fun!
Then we wandered through galleries of paintings and sculptures, pausing to look at ones that evoked emotion or caught our eye. I enjoyed seeing paintings that I had learned about in Mrs. Little's French class in the Hartney Collegiate Institute I attended as a teenager. Then, I clipped stories of the French artists and their paintings out of the Reader's Digest for assignments from French class. Now I stood mere inches away from them! I wonder if Mrs. Little knew the impact she made on my life?
Almost two hours later, we agreed that our "art compartments" were full and we headed out to get some fresh air while we processed the stories that these artists, including Degas, Money, Manet, Van Gogh and Renoir recorded so long ago.Read more