The Rest Of Our Sunday

When we finished with the Louvre, we decided to go check out the Orangerie Museum as well because it’s only a short 10 minute walk away.  The line up here was 30 minutes, but that was because the Orangerie is small and they are careful about crowd control. 

We were relieved to find only a handful of people inside the main exhibit, Les Nymphéas by Claude Monet.  This was hands-down my favourite art-experience in my entire life – the Orangerie has built two oval-shaped rooms to display these eight huge wall to wall pieces from Monet’s Water Lilies collection.  The white walls and natural lighting in these rooms make it a very tranquil experience and even as art newbies, we were mesmerized by these paintings.  If I lived in Paris, I think I would spend countless hours just sitting in these oval rooms staring at the walls! 

The rest of the Orangerie is quite nice as well, especially if you favor works from the Impressionism period like we do.  I found myself enjoying the works of Pierre-Auguste Renoir,  Paul Cézanne, and Henri Matisse immensely – and I hadn’t heard of them until recently!  Seeing the Orangerie’s collection has broadened my knowledge of art and I can finally say I know a little bit more than just the most famous artists (e.g. Van Gogh, da Vinci, and Monet) who everyone knows!

Feeling happy to have saved 16.50 euros in admission fees today, we decided to walk in the direction of Galleries Lafayette to find some food since we had skipped lunch in our rush to get to the museums to get in line (so we thought).  As we walked, we encountered a huge group of men dressed up in silly wigs, feather boas, and fake fur coats, and some were even wearing high heels!  From a distance it looked like some big transvestite party, but once we crossed the street and were among we realized that their outfits were too ridiculous and not feminine enough to be transvestites.  We stopped and asked to take a picture with one pair of guys who were off the the side, and they explained (in very broken English) that they were going to some kind of concert that involved magic.  Must be quite a show!

After a lot of walking, we decided to stop at a restaurant/bar that had a reasonably priced menu.  Our streak of luck continued and we found out it was happy hour so Paul got a beer and I got a champagne cocktail, which turned out to be the best cocktail I’ve ever tasted!  I must try mixing crème de framboise, champagne, and strawberry juice together when I get home!  The food was also quite tasty – I had some kind of fish with rice and a really nice light sauce and Paul got country-roasted chicken which was really nice and juicy and cooked in a delicious marinade. 

All in all, today was one of the best Sundays we’ve had so far on this trip!  We saw two great museums for free, met some silly but nice French people, and had some delicious food paired with some great drinks.  What more could anyone ask for?