Paris to Normandy, Day 8 -- Musee d'Orsay & Les Invalides

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Photos from Day 8, Musee d'Orsay & Les Invalides

The cruise is over, and now we are on our own in Paris for three days. Well, not totally alone. There were a dozen of us who extended our trip, and Viking provided us with Monsieur Arnold (Arnold is his first name, but I called him "Misure Arno"). Of course there was an extra two million visitors to the city because of the holiday weekend that kept us anything but alone.

We awoke early to see Dan & Fran off, although Barb never made it to the lobby at the right time. Charlie & Lauri's flight was later so we all had a farewell breakfast and hugged our favorite crew goodbye. At 9:30 Barb & I boarded the bus that took us to Crown Royal Plaza Republique, our home for the next 3 days. Our Viking group met with Misure Arno in the lobby to help plan our time. Later we told him of all of the places we wanted to visit, and he helped us map out the best approach. Lauri told us several times throughout the cruise that we MUST see Napoloean's tomb at Les Invalides, and that the Musee d'Orsay is the best museum in Paris, so we told him we'd like to do them first. He suggested we purchase advance tickets for the museum at the hotel, which costs only a couple dollars extra, so we wouldn't have to stand in the long line to buy them.

When we arrived at Musee d'Orsay we were elated to see the long line we'd avoid, and looked for the pre-purchase short line. It was around the other side of the building. We saw the door... and the line... extending down the steps... down the street... and around the corner. It seemed just as long as the cheap line. We knew that no matter where we went we'd find lines; besides, we already had our tickets. We stood and shuffled along the concrete path for about an hour and a half, just making it to the overhang when it started to rain. There were two girls from Australia in front of us who were there on their first day of a two-month European vacation, and the couple that came behind us turned out to live less than an hour away from our home in Pennsylvania. Great conversation made the time fly by.

Inside the old-train-station-now-museum the mostly French art was outstanding. An incredible collection of the creative side of humankind, and, yes, I like it better than the Louvre. You would think that that was because here I had my camera whereas in the Louvre I ran out of battery, but it was more of what I felt when viewing the pieces. As far as having my camera... well, you can see there are only 3 photos taken inside the museum. After going up some steps to get the view of the old train station for those shots, I noticed (and kept noticing throughout) signs posted with little symbols that meant things like no photos - no flash - no shoes - no service or something. There were plenty of security types all over, and no one stopped me from photographing. After seeing hundreds of others taking photos at arm's length, I decided to ask a guard if I was reading those symbols correctly or were they drawn in French. He assured me that photos were NOT allowed. Later, still seeing that the "law" was not enforced, I asked another if it only pertained to certain areas. "Photos are not allowed anywhere in the museum." Ok. Out of character, I complied. Besides, remember this was not a photo trip, and anyone wanting to see the stuff inside could easily find the arm's-length shots on Google. Photos 4 and 5 were taken outside while Barb was looking at her map to find us the best walking path to Napoleon's place. Photo 5 is an in-camera pano.

Since everyone calls Barb's number (sometimes even when they're looking for me), we only put the International Data Plan on her phone. She pulled up the map app that gave us walking directions and we were off to Les Invalides. Later, back in our hotel room, Barb got a text from Verizon telling her that those directions on our little stroll cost us over $75 –Euro! Sheesh, just because we didn't want to pay for a cab ride.

When we got to the grounds of the museums, Barb went to purchase tickets and I took some photos. The lines were thinning to non-existent as the day was winding to evening. If we waited until 5 o'clock, we'd save like $3 each on the tickets, which could help defray the cost of the walk over here, and it was ten of five. We waited.

Lauri was right again. This was a wonderful place. We walked around marveling at the marble, taking the high ISO photos. The crowds were thinning nicely, and we exited through the Musee de l'Armee. It's a good thing we didn't walk back to our hotel. We cabbed it there, dropped off most of our stuff and walked across the plaza to the best restaurant in Paris, the Cafe Republique, to which we thankfully needed no data directions.

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Photos

Illegal Photo
...but everybody has one.