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Published: July 28th 2013
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Due to the accident of my father’s digital camera, we missed going to Eiffel Tower on 22 June. We thus decided to start our journey early on 23 June.
We took the overground train from Gare d’Austerlitz, and travelled to Champ de Mars Tour Eiffel. The museum pass did not include the admission fees for the Eiffel Tower. My mother told me that she climbed to the middle stage of the tower by staircase in 2000. We saw both people climbing on the staircase and getting on the lift. We approached the tower and found the names of celebrities inscribed on the façade of the tower. There were indeed millions of people queuing up for the tower. We walked through the park towards Ecole Militaire’s building. My mother remembered the viewpoints for the Eiffel Tower, which she was taken by the tourist conductor in 2000. She sketched the tower from the different angles, as well as taking photos.
We took the metro from Ecole Militaire and travelled to Musee d’ Orsay. There were loads of people queuing up for the entry for the museum. As we had the museum passes, we were offered the priority
entry route.
It was nearly the lunch time when we arrived at Orsay Museum. After leaving rucksacks in the clock room, we headed to the restaurant. The building of Orsay Museum used to be the railway station. In addition to the exterior of the overall station building, the structure of the platform and rooms of the platform, stairs, etc of Orsay station have been remained, and those rooms have been converted for the exhibition room. The restaurant room used to be the part of the hotel adjacent to the railway station. The luxurious interior furnished with fresco and chandeliers, and large windows and mirrors have been remained, and it offered us the luxurious atmosphere in the restaurant. As well as us, many customers were taking memorial photos with the beautiful dining room. It was my father and Mark’s birthday. My mother treated the lunch to us. My parents had “cod and a jacket potatoes and desert, as today’s special meal. Mark had ravioli and I had fish meal, and desert.
I was reading Chikyu no arukikata of Paris while waiting for the meal, and learnt that Orsay Museum possesses scores of Impressionist paintings, collections
of sculptures, and decorative arts. After the lunch, we went to the 5
th floor and looked round the galleries of Impressionist masterpieces. It was said that the radical changes of style of painting was occurred in the second half of the 19
th century and these Impressionist painters, e.g. Monet, Manet, Cezanne, Degas, Renoir, Pissaro, Sisley, etc were rather castigated at that time. It was great to see wonderful collections of Impressionist masterpieces on the top floor. Many pictures illustrated the people’s activities in the countryside and outside of the house. Orsay Museum holds nearly 80 paintings by Claude Monet. Not only water lilies paintings but we also saw a wide variety of paintings with scenery of poppies on the countryside, picnic, cathedrals and seaside. There were loads of famous paintings which I had once seen on the front covers of art books, classic fictions, and text books. Degas was one of the most active members of the Impressionist group. Whilst rejecting to produce outdoor paintings, he produced a number of paintings showing modern life, e.g. ballet dancers, horse racing, and women at their toilet. He also produced scores of sculptures and they were displayed in the gallery. We also admired
lovely landscape paintings by Pissaro and Sisley.
After that, we went down to the 2
nd level, and saw artistic but functional pieces of furniture, and decorative ornaments in the Decorative Arts gallery, and a number of sculptures, statues and busts of historic celebrities by prominent sculptures, e.g. Auguste Rodin, Edgar Degas, Jean-Bapitiste Capeaux.
We found the gallery rooms for Post Impressionist paintings by Paul Gauguin, Van Gogh, Georges Seurat, Paul Signac, and Edovaud Vuillard, and enjoyed looking at those artists’ paintings.
It was 3 o’clock when finishing looking round the gallery rooms on the 2
nd level. Orsay Museum’s collections began in 1848. There were also superb paintings of traditional art, and Romantic Art. It was pleasure to see the scenes of real life in the Asian, Middle East countries, landscape paintings by Jean-Francois Millet, Courbet.
We left Orsay Museum just after 4’o’clock. There were still a lot of people queuing up outside the museum.
We took the overground train from Orsay Musee to Saint Michael-Notre Dame. Notre Dame Cathedral is one of Paris’ landmarks. There were loads of people on the site. We managed to
climb on to the stage to see cathedral’s Gothic facades with rose windows, statues, and towers. After seeing loads of people queuing for the cathedral or tower, we gave up going to the cathedral. With the museum passes, we decided to go to the crypt archaeological museum of Notre Dame. The museum provided English guide, and how the city of Paris and Notre Dame have been developed with 3D panels. It was also interesting to see the remains of Roman bath building on the centre of the museum.
Afterwards, we came back to Paris Austerlitz and walked back to the hotel. We had dinner at Brasserie Restaurant. Despite the fact we had big meals in the lunch time, we were hungry in the evening, and we all managed to eat the main meals and drink. We ordered Rose wine to celebrate my father and Mark’s birthday.
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