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Published: August 4th 2015
Who would have thought that cows would be my enduring memory of today? Amongst other lovely things of course, but I keep thinking about the cows.
This morning dawned bright and sunny. Apparently the cool snap is over and it is going to be gorgeous for the next week or so. We, however, won't be here that long, and are starting to feel that our remaining time in France is too short. Greedy, aren't we?
It seems to gobble a day when you need to move apartments, but we were determined not to rush off from Versailles and managed to fit in a very successful visit to a little dress shop in our street. How amazing that three ladies of varying ages, shapes and heights were able to find the perfect thing in the same boutique! The charming shop assistant and her sister, who were juggling a tiny 3-week old baby between them, were lovely to chat to. We were all very interested in each other's lives, and pieced together what needed to be discovered in a funny Frenglish which seemed to work!
Despite a quick stop at a cake shop we just couldn't walk past, we made
the train and were soon heading back to Paris while we tucked into our purchases. Sarah very sensibly abstained, but I am already anticipating the sense of loss which comes with
not having a lovely patisserie on every street corner and enjoying any Paris Brest which comes my way. Lucky Isabel has the advantage of a teenage metabolism and doesn't need to think twice.
I am thinking the Paris Brest from Uzès was the best so far, but Angelina's came a very close second. Maybe it was the decadence of scoffing half a pastry with your daughter while driving one-handed down a country road that pushed our Uzès purchase into first place, but Isabel and I are both in agreement that none of the Paris Brests after that have quite measured up. As for the Auxerre Mille Feuille au Cassis, we haven't even seen another of those (sigh). It was in a class of its own.
It's such a quick ride back from Versailles that there was hardly any time to eat before it was time to get off. You would think that our experiences getting into the metro station at Notre-Dame/St Michel would lead to a re-evaluation
of our plan to exit there, but it didn't happen that way. After all, gorgeous young men in mauve shirts don't happen along every day to rescue you from suitcase hell! This time we grappled with a faulty ticket that trapped Isabel and her bag in the perspex exit doors, followed by a fire that we thought Isabel was imagining when she complained about the smell of smoke. It turned out she was right, and the fire soon had the commuters running for cover as bits of flaming newspaper caught the station draughts and attacked unsuspecting train travellers! It wasn't a huge drama and was quickly put out with an extinguisher by the very efficient metro employees, but it added to the excitement of the afternoon.
I should warn anyone contemplating walking from the Seine past Carousel du Louvre with suitcases, that white dusty gravel, black suede shoes and wheelie bags don't mix. Somehow though, the brilliant blue sky and sunshine compensated for my poor wardrobe choice and aching legs, and we made it to the lovely Rue Moliere with smiles on our faces.
I don't quite know where the afternoon went, but suddenly we were rushing back
Musee D'Orsay
The main lines had clocks above the entry arches. Each arch has the name of the route above it so you knew where to enter the station.in reverse, past Carousel du Louvre and across the Seine - this time to the Musee D'Orsay, where we met up with our guide for the evening, Mary. If you've ever lined up at Musee D'Orsay, you'd know that it's quite a nice thing to be able to take the side entrance and walk straight in! That is just a minor advantage of booking a tour with Paris Muse, but we would not have considered any other tour company. In 2011, we gave Isabel a "Muse Clues Tour of the Louvre" on her 12th birthday. To say it was superb would be an understatement, and my children still rate it one of their top ten travel experiences, ever. We tell anyone going to Paris with children to just close their eyes at the payment page and book it. How the guide kept a 5 and 12-year-old absolutely enthralled for 3 hours while navigating the whole family through the labyrinth of The Louvre, I'll never know. We adults were just as entertained. ANYWAY, to get back to Musee D'Orsay, we had booked an evening tour as we'd heard it was less crowded, which was quite true. This time, our eyes were
opened to the Neo-classical period as Mary started with some paintings I would have glanced at and thought were from the Renaissance. We were all quite interested in the architecture of the building, and what luck, Mary was actually an architect as well as a fine art lecturer. We had been wondering about all the arches along the Seine, and Mary told us that when you were approaching Gare D'Orsay to catch your train, you entered under the arch bearing the name of the line you would be taking, for example, Paris-Orlèans. The clocks told you what time your train would leave. They are all blocked up now of course, but imagine how gorgeous it would have looked - trunks and ladies in wonderful hats and porters streaming through those arches.....
The most amazing thing to me, was the very short length of time the railway station was able to be used. The rapid development of trains made the station obsolete in just 39 years, because the platforms were too short for the new long trains which could carry more passengers. We stood overlooking the main floor of the museum, imagining the platforms and the new, clean electric trains
The Degas bronze
So beautiful, so depressing! rolling in. Suburban trains used it for a while, then it was a mailing centre during World War 2, and a repatriation centre and hospital for prisoners of war and deportees at the end of the war. The beautiful limestone on the exterior was used to mask the metal structure, as it was felt the museum needed to blend in with the surrounding buildings. The thing I loved the most was that a hotel was built above the station. (Why don't we do this at Flinders Street and build that rail link to the airport!) The restaurant is still housed in the ballroom, and when you walk down the hall to enter it, you do get the feeling you're in a very elegant hotel. As we wandered the upper levels of the museum, we passed by the huge clocks you can see from outside the museum. From the inside, you can look through them for wonderful views to Sacre Coeur and the rooftops of Paris. I snapped a quick shot of Isabel in silhouette as she stood gazing out the window that is one of my favourites. Actually I snapped far too many photographs and now can't choose between them.
Rosa Bonheur, Ploughing in Nevers
The cows, the light, the frustration of being a painter and a woman in the 19th century...... Should I leave out the detail of the ceilings and the light fittings, or the painting of Genazzano, the town in Italy my old school is named after? Or the Degas sculpture which dashed my illusion of clean, privileged little girls taking dancing lessons when Mary informed us they were actually usually street children groomed to be dancers and then prostitutes! (I still love it). Impossible to make a decision. Oh well.
And the cows, I've just realised I forgot to elaborate. There is a massive painting on a wall all of its own, which we stopped to examine when discussing the shift from the Neo-classical movement to realism. At first glance it looks just like well-painted cows, but the story behind the painter, Rosa Bonheur is fascinating. The cows grow on you too, after a while. The light starts to bounce off them and as you move away the painting becomes more and more beautiful. Anyway, Rosa was a very talented painter whose father was progressive and encouraged her to paint. Being a girl, she couldn't exhibit her work or study painting at art school (Too many nudes). As she couldn't study the anatomy of people, Rosa studied
Sarah, Chez Julienne
We lost our reservation but got a table outside until we could move in and study the fantastic ceiling and painted cows. (That's my limited understanding of it, anyway). I did love that she was a bit of a rebel, and wore mens trousers "Because they are more comfortable", and went to the abbatoirs to study the anatomy of cows in the way that Da Vinci went to the morgue to study the anatomy of people......
We had revelation after revelation on our tour, and moved through the impressionists and post-impressionists which never fail to impress. I was also thrilled to be treated to a huge section model of the Palais Garnier and the real sculptures (The originals were removed from the building itself because they were being damaged).
The only down side of choosing an evening tour was that we would have liked more time to linger afterwards, and that SHOCK HORROR the gift shop was CLOSED by the time we were hustled to the exit by the museum staff. Nobody will ever know how much the French economy was damaged by that miscalculation on our part.
We were, once again, ravenous by the time we punched in our bike codes and grabbed bikes on Rue de Lille. Our reservation at Chez Lucien in the
Looking towards Invalides from Pont Alexandre III
This is the view that makes me think I am never going to be finished with Paris. Marais was for 9pm, and it was well after that when we powered down towards the Seine. Night was falling and it was so gorgeous looking across the bridge then standing and watching the boats making their way up and down the river . My photos are disappointing - next time I
will take that photography tour of Paris - but there is a photograph I keep, taken by someone else, which looks just like our view did tonight. It reminds me why I will never be finished with Paris. I will always want to see the Pont Alexandre III at sunset one more time......
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