Our first stop on our last tourism visit to Paris was the Musee d’Orsee. This museum has an impressive collection of Impressionist masterpieces, and an enormous collection of sculptures.
I was amazed at how close we could get to some of the most famous paintings in the world, and that we were allowed to photograph them, which we were forbidden to do in most parts of the Louvre.
This particular museum seems obsessed with clocks. There are few places where you cannot see at least one enormous clock. The one shown below is in the museum café. It's almost as though the museum designers want to emphasize the passage of time for the visitors, while attempting to stop it completely for the artifacts contained within the walls. |  |
I was completely charmed by this Monet painting of a lemon, which is approximately life size. I wondered what compelled him to invest the time to paint this image. Also, who is the person at the museum responsible for the selection of frames? The one on this lemon picture is far too ornate and bulky for such a tiny, simple image. It’s almost as though the curator wanted to emphasize the importance of the artist, ignoring the fact that it’s a goddamn picture of a lemon.
Here I am standing in front of one of Monet’s famous haystack paintings. He did a whole series of these, and they’re quite lovely. I was suffering from a nagging, phlegmatic cough the entire time, so I’m afraid I left a fine spray of bronchial mucus on some of the great Impressionist works of the early 20th century. Some poor conservator will have to clean it off someday.
My daughter reached art saturation fairly quickly, and found a place to sit where she could read a book, surrounded by beauty she was unable to appreciate. Note the large clock on the far end of the sculpture hall.
After the museum, we went out for coffee. In Paris, you can order coffee in many forms. We had café noisette, café Viennois, and cappuccino. 
Later, we strolled through the city, and I pointed out a Boucherie Chevaline (a butcher specializing in horsemeat) to my daughter, who was totally grossed out. We visited a Fromagere, a shop selling nothing but cheeses. My daughter was in heaven, and bought a giant lump of Mimolette to bring home.
Well, that about sums it up for this trip to France. I would like to thank the French people, who were unfailingly gracious hosts. In particular, I would like to thank the proprietor of Les Princes café, which was located near the parking garage. We used the bathroom there every day on arrival and every evening on departure from the city. Merci, mon ami. I would also like to thank the mayor of the city of Paris for installing the cool space toilets in high-tourism areas. These little pods would open at the press of a button, enabling you to do your business, then they would clean and sanitize themselves before admitting another desperate tourist. Formidable!
One morning we got up early and drove down the secondary road that runs along the Seine through a series of small towns down to Giverny, where the great Impressionist painter Claude Monet lived. One of the towns we passed through was Les Andelys, which has a large castle up on the hill overlooking the town.
The French use the word “chateau” for “castle,” but they also use it to mean “large house” or “small house.” So it’s all contextual, and makes no sense. We couldn’t visit the castle, because they all closed at the end of September – one of the problems of traveling during shoulder season.
We passed homes that were half-timber construction (typical of the region), and some that had thatched roofs. It was like being transported back in time.
Eventually we reached the town of Giverny, where the home and gardens of Claude Monet have been lovingly preserved. You must pay a small admission fee to enter the gardens, and it’s a little more if you want to see the house as well. The gardens are magnificent, even in October. I can’t name all the flowers that are planted there, but they are growing 8 feet tall in some places, in profuse, voluptuous splashes of color.
There’s an underground passageway that takes you beneath the busy road that runs past the town and brings you up at the lily pond where Monet painted his famous series. It’s a beautiful spot, and my daughter was quite captivated seeing the lily pond and the paintings that were completed there.
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Monet was an avid collector of Japanese prints, which cover the walls of his house. At one point, he had a small footbridge built over one end of the lily pond, in the arched Japanese style, which is known as the Pont Japonais. This bridge became the subject of a series of famous paintings. I found it amusingly ironic that on that day, the Pont Japonais was groaning beneath the weight of a dozen or so Japanese tourists, frantically snapping pictures.
Monet’s house is surprisingly modest, although that may have been the way things were back around the turn of the 20th century. Besides the dozens of Japanese prints from his collection, there were lots of copies of his paintings done by students. This is to give you a feel for the way the house must have looked when he lived there, but the copies sucked, so it didn't really work. It’s filled with period furniture that matches the furniture from the original house. My daughter was amused by the lumpy featherbeds.
The French have learned much from Americans, so the entire area that Monet used as a studio has been turned into a gift shop, selling postcards, shopping bags, refrigerator magnets, books, and even Impressionism-by-numbers art kits.
When we left the house, we visited a museum nearby called the American Art Museum, where there was a terrific exhibit of Winslow Homer paintings. After the museum, we took a short walk through the lovely little town of Giverny to the church where Monet is buried, along with many members of his family. By this time, My daughter had reached art and history overload, and wanted nothing more than to sit down and read a book.
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