Museum Walking

May 1-2

Monday’s a lean day for visitors in Paris. Most of the museums are closed.

The Louvre is open, but only till 6. So we decided to wait till Wednesday, when it stays open till 9:45. The Rodin and the Orsay museums are closed. 

We found two possibilities. One is a museum of medieval art down the street, the Cluny Museum at the crossing of Boulevard Saint Michel and Boulevard Saint Germain.

The Musee Guimet, the National Museum of Asian Art, not far from the Trocadero, is also open on Mondays.

We walked to the Luxembourg Gardens to get the No. 82 bus that would take us to the Guimet.

We didn’t see the No. 82 listed at the first stop we came to, so we walked a little farther along St. Michel than we needed to. We came to stop and asked a lady there about the 82 bus. She was French, but from out of town. 

She said she was waiting for the same bus. Remembering the cancellation of the No. 24, we asked if it was running. She said she hoped so.

I was a bit concerned. The 82 was listed on a separate sign at the kiosk. According to the schedule information on the sign, it was supposed to be running. But you never know.

It did come and pick us up, though. And we rode through a part of Paris we hadn’t seen before. This has to be the most beautiful city I’ve seen. Everywhere we go there are tall, but not soaring, buildings with Mansard roofs. Everything looks ancient and new at the same time.

We passed one crowded block where busloads of Chinese tourists were lined up for dim sum on one side of the street and at stores on the other.

The 82 passes the Champs de Mars and then right in front of the Eiffel Tower before it crosses the bridge to the Trocadero Palace to head uphill toward Place d’Iena, where the museum is.

We missed our stop and got off a block farther at the Place Marlene Dietrich.

It’s a lucky thing that getting there was so much fun because the museum was closed. May Day is also Labor Day in France. 

We were getting thirsty and walked past several cafes that were closed for the holiday. Half the stores were closed, too.

We finally found a place that was open, La Mascotte on Avenue du President Wilson near the Champs Elysees. A short coffee, a little red wine, some mineral water and we were ready to go again.

We took the No. 63 bus back to the stop called Cluny on Blvd. St. Germain. That’s where the Cluny museum is. It’s in a 14th century building on the site of an old Roman bath. It once served for a time as a residence for high-level clerics—bishops and abbots. 

A small park outside is planted with shrubs and flowers common in the medieval forests of France.

We also prowled around the tourist area, which was crowded for the holiday. Everything there was open. It was a treat to sit in a cafe and watch the crowds go by.

It is very bright and colorful, full of cafes, bistros, bars, food stands, and souvenir shops, all in winding medieval alleys. Somehow a small supermarket got tucked in there, where Joanna could buy pears and bananas. 

For dinner we went back to Les Patios at Place de la Sorbonne, right around the corner. We shared a lamb shank for dinner, along with a half liter of Bordeaux.

It wasn’t quite enough after a full day of running with no lunch. So we ordered a portion of goat cheese with walnuts and honey. Joanna took one bite of the cheese and decided to stick with the walnuts.

The cheese had a bitter edge, like many goat cheeses. It was too weird for Joanna’s Cantonese palate, but I found it interesting.

Tuesday the Musee d’Orsay is open. We found that the No. 63 bus will take us there. 

The museum focuses on 19th century work and has a strong emphasis on Impressionism. It is linked to the Orangerie, right across the river in the Tuileries.

We got there in the middle of the afternoon and went straight to the top floor to see the Impressionists. Joanna read that they start closing the museum from the top floor down.

The Orsay is home to several Impressionist standards. Manet’s Lunch on the Grass and Olympia, for instance, are in the same room. They created a stir when they were introduced.

One shows fashionably dressed men at a picnic with two naked women. Nudes were OK to paint in those days, but apparently it was scandalous to mix them with men wearing ties.

Olympia really shook people up because it was a portrait of a naked woman, not of an impersonal nude. What’s more, it was a specific woman. Olympia was a very popular prostitute in Paris.

She is reclining and staring at the viewer with a look of firm confidence. She has one hand on her lap. “OK, Edouard, you can paint me naked, but it will cost you more to see that.”

A few rooms later, we came to a Cezanne called A Modern Olympia. Cezanne’s painting shows a viewer looking at a deconstructed Olympia. 

I don’t know how long we prowled that floor, but we made sure to get a look at everything there. We’ve been doing a lot of museum walking over the past several days, and it is much more tiring than walking on a street.

We stopped at one of the museum cafes for an array of things to drink: espresso, Campari and soda, Perrier water, and hot chocolate. The stop and the drinks refreshed us.

Joanna looked at her watch. It was almost five. They were going to throw us out in less than an hour and we hadn’t seen the Van Goghs yet.

There are several Van Gogh paintings in a small gallery off the mezzanine balcony. One is a self-portrait dominated by the artist’s red hair and beard. There were a couple of churches with the crooked roof lines. 

They were under glass to preserve and protect, but you could still see the sculptural effects of the thick applications of paint. 

One of our favorites, an alternative starry night, had been moved to a special exhibit across the floor. We rushed there, but were too late to get in.

We did get to see Millet’s Angelus and some funny caricatures by Daumier.

One Daumier is a small bronze of a skinny boulevardier with his face lost behind his hat brim and an exaggerated mustache. We had seen the image (perhaps on a sign for a bistro) somewhere in the previous few days, but I couldn’t recall where.

A museum guard literally shooed us out after that. He waved his hands at us to move us along.

Hey, what’s going on? When they run you out of the Louvre they at least send a guy with a broom.

Dinner was at Perigord, which is a superb restaurant. After so much museum walking, I was in need of energy. I had to get some red meat so I had a rare steak. 

Joanna can’t bring herself to eat rare meat, so she had duck confit. I sampled a bit of it, and it was as good as I expected.

The beef was tender and rare. It came without potatoes, which surprised me, but Joanna came to the rescue and offered me some off her plate.

I had a small zucchini of some kind with some sort of brown paste inside and bean sprouts sticking out of it. As terrible as that sounds, it was quite tasty. Well, about as tasty as zucchini can get, which isn’t saying much.

Enough for now. I’ll catch up more later.

Stay well, all.

Harry