September 5 -- looking for art

.

Back on the metro, headed back toward the river.

TJ.

The first Sunday of the month is "get into art museums free" day.

We wanted to visit the Musée d'Orsay.

One of the cool things about Paris art museums is that the age of the building tends to correspond to the age of the work displayed inside. The Louvre has work up through the 17th century. The Centre Pompidou has work from the late 20th century.

The Musée d'Orsay, which was a train station, has work from the end of the 19th century.

A tippy pic, as I was trying to get as much of the facade as possible into the image.  If you click to embiggen, you can see destinations people would have reached from here, when it was a train station.  Tours is one of them.....

Unfortunately a large number of other people also turned out to take advantage of "get into art museums free" day, and the lines were Very Long. We decided to pass.



The Louvre, across the river.

I wanted to see I. M. Pei's pyramidal addition, and figured I would be able to see it from the outside, even if the lines were too long for us to get in over there.

Le Grand Palais.

Musée d'Orsay

The two square towers with the spire between are Notre Dame de Paris.

I'm pretty sure the spire to the left is la Sainte Chapelle.

I don't know what the dome at right is......

The Louvre, with the new pyramid.

Ordinarily, you can get in under the pyramid without an official entry to the whole museum, but not, alas, on "get into art museums free" day.  Of course the line there was incredibly long, too.

(this pic was poster-edged, which is why the dots in the sky....)

We decided to head for le Musée du quai Branly, which has "primitive" art from various parts of the world. Perhaps that one might not have such a crowd of waiting visitors.

Looking back toward le Musée d'Orsay.

You can see we are in the middle of all the Paris must-sees.

I wonder how much it costs to berth your houseboat right under the Louvre?

La Place de la Concorde. So much fun, to recognize these things as we passed them.....

That is an Egyptian obelisk, and the top of it is gold (and so, very reflective), not white....

Closeup of the above.  The Louvre, and Notre Dame.

Encore le Grand Palais.

Pont Alexandre III. (pont is bridge) With les Invalides. You'll recall that les Invalides is the dome you see, left and behind the bottom of the Eiffel tower from the webcam.

Bicycle polo.  New to me!

And a bit farther away, they are playing roller-skate hockey.

With la Tour Montparnasse in the background.

Lots of not-green trees.  I know that some trees' leaves turn brown and fall off when the weather is too dry.  My tulip tree does that.  I can't remember if sycamores do that.....

Not sure if these trees are a sign of fall, or......

It was along this walk that the American Church appeared, thank goodness, with its American readily-available toilets.

We are nearing le Musée du quai Branly.

See my daughter's take on this excellent day here.



In order to facilitate chronological traverse of these posts, here is a link to the post that comes after this one.

.