SUMMARY After a lovely breakfast at our hotel we walked to the Musèe d’Orsay where they are having a special exhibit on the history of Impressionism that was very interesting. Then off to Montparnasse train station to change our tickets for Sunday. Back to the hotel to rest and blog then walked over to our dinner destination for raclette cheese (even though it is totally not the season!) The evening ended with dead rats. (Read Scott's detail for explanation) - Karen
DETAIL Our alarm wakes us at 6:30. It’s our first full day in Paris and we’re far from being over any jet lag. There’s no coffee maker in the room. Quel scandal! Breakfast is served from 7:30. We have to be strong. We luxuriate in our first shower in a couple of days. Out the window the sky is blue and the air is a refreshing 54 degrees.
The same woman serves us breakfast as last visit. Maybe she’s Portuguese? Croissant and pain au chocolate each plus a tartiné (1/2 a baguette and 15 grams of French butter). Cafe au lait and lots of entrée choices. I get two eggs, sunny side up. She breaks one of my yolks and is mortified. She almost insists on redoing them, but I assure her that I’ll survive. She’s not so sure.
On our walk to the Impressionist exhibit at the Orsay we see lots of preparations for the Olympic Games. More buildings than usual are being cleaned or re-faced. We see tall wire dividers to keep the pedestrians on the side walks and away from the cars (or parades, …). In quite a few places we see tall stacks of shiny new barricades, ready to be deployed. Lots of control planned (or to be attempted).
The temporary exhibit at the Orsay was extremely well done. They start by setting the stage, explaining how the recent Prussian war had left Paris in a bad way and City Prefect Haussmann was starting to redo the town with grand buildings and wide boulevards. Up from the Louvre a new opera house, the Garnier, was being erected. Then you’re in front of a huge screen taking you up to the atelier where a group of artists had hung their own art for an exhibition. You end up doing a fly through from room to room, seeing the paintings hung, illuminated by this newfangled electric lights.
After that you continue through ‘rooms’ with those same paintings (the real ones) hung on wall of the same colors of the atelier. Very effective and what an amazing collection of impressionist art. Delightful. Details here: Paris 1874 Inventer l'impressionnisme | Musée d'Orsay
Having had our fill of art we head out and walk to Montparnasse train station to change our tickets to Angoulême. We were going to stop in Bordeaux but now not, so no need to change trains. Our original train to Bordeaux was going through Angulême anyway (just not stopping).
We have lunch at The Saint Sulpice cafe, named (and logo’ed) after the 1960s show, The Saint, in part because the café is in front of the Saint Sulpice metro stop. Full of art and food we return to Hotel Madame for some down time.
We have dinner reservations at a raclette restaurant, new to us both. I look up the reviews and find where someone was aghast to see mice scurrying around on the floor of the dining room. I can’t wait to see that!. We have a glass of wine near our dinner restaurant and buy tickets for some Santa Fe chile fiesta events for September.
Great raclette (cheese) dinner. Normal sides are different kinds of deli meats and bread and potatoes. You can opt for veggies instead of the deli meats, so we do 1/2 and 1/2. Delicious and brilliant. Delicious salad. The French know how to grow lettuce! We split one bottle of Aprement (followed by one more glass). We’re disappointed, no mice. We walk past bars where a soccer game is on the télé (part of the Coupe d’Europe). As we walk by Spain scores the first goal of the game on Germany. We must be good luck!
With wine in the stomach and rodents on the mind we try to find the dead rat store from the Disney movie Ratatouille. We’ve been there many times but have had trouble finding it of late. We ask a couple sitting in their car watching the game. Sorry no. We ask three workers at a restaurant. NO one knows. WTF. I looked it up online. We are less than one block from the place. (Am I good or what?)
We walk home and try to stay up a bit longer. Only marginally successful.
Photos
The view down the semi-circular staircase from our 3rd floor (4th in the 'merican way of counting). There another hotel room on the back side of the curved wall. We didn't get to see it but we're very intrigued.
Karen prepping the butter and croissant. Coffee, au lait, eggs, yougurt, fruit, etc. still to come.
Walking to the Orsay museum. The tall baricades for humans are new, for the Olympics. Keep the drunk humans from the drunk drivers.
Barricades may help, too. We saw huge brand new collections of these, seemingly recently delivered, all over town, ready to separate something from something else.
Lady Liberty greeting us at the Orsay. We found out they made 400+ (?) of these, in addition to the tall one in New York, and the short one on the island in the Siene. You mean it was all about money? Shocked. Shocked, I tell you!
The entrance to a very well done exhibit on Impressionism. Some say it started in Paris (wink).
Karen stayed looking at this masterpiece for a while.
OK TIME FOR MORE FOOD. Lunch time. If you recall The Saint TV show in the 60s, this napkin will make sense.
Such good, healthy, and colorful food. The beer was pretty good, too.
Not to be outdone, dinner... Raclette... It's a winter food, but what the heck. We were told if we eat all of that cheese that dinner would be free of charge. We didn't finish the cheese. Wine bottle for scale (wink).
Normally with Raclette you get meat, like here salami, jambon de paris (here natural and truffée -- i.e. with truffles, yum), french braseola, and italian braseola. One plate per eater. We opted for one plate of vegetables and still gained 10 pounds at dinner.
If you saw the Disney animated film Ratatouille, you undoubtedly remember the scene where Remy's father shows him the store where the humans show-off their rat-killing prowess. It's real. We visited it. So fun!
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