Woke up after a good night’s sleep for me, but mom woke up with a headache. So we putzed around the apt for a bit since I thought our Musee d’Orsay tickets were not for a specific time. Until just as mom was getting ready to step into the shower, I looked at the tickets again. They are mostly in French but I saw 9h30, and googled it. Crap…it was now 9:15. No shower for Ginger. We raced out of the house to the museum. We made pretty good time and arrived there at 9:40. And realized 9:30 was when it opened, not when we needed to be there. But we’re early birds and hate crowds, so all was good, and we didn’t even have to wait in line.

The museum was amazing, and only 30 years old. The building used to be an old train station, and looked like one with the high glass ceilings and enormous clock. The exhibit was the spectacular Second Empire. There were 12 rooms each depicting a different theme such as portraits of society, celebrations, leisure pursuits, decorative tastes. It was interesting but we preferred the Impressionists floor instead. There we saw Claude Monet, Cezanne, Edouard Manet, Edgar Degas, Renoir,  Pissaro, Sisley, Gauguin and others. And oddly enough Whistlers Mother was in this section too. Somewhat out of place, but a nice surprise.

After the impressionists, we stopped for lunch at the cafe in the museum. Mom had quiche, and I had soup (not really sure what kind it was though, was supposed to be Thai chicken, but I’m guessing Lentil). The other amazing site on the 5th floor were the clocks. They were gorgeous. We saw 3 of them, two of which we saw up close. Next we went to the 2nd floor, and didn’t realize how many additional small rooms there were, with not so small paintings. Some of the rooms were people’s personal collections. There were more impressionists and so many other artists.we were impressed with van Gogh, Bonnard, Toulouse-Lautrec, Denis, Cross. The first and second floors in the main area are filled with different sculptures. Because everything was so open it didn’t feel huge, there was so much to see. We didn’t leave the museum until 3pm. And could you believe we weren’t up for a chocolate tour.

Instead, we sat on steps over looking the Seine watching people and boats go by. The weather today was just beautiful,  sunny and high 60s. We decided after sitting there for a while, that instead of catching the train home that we’d take a Batobus. For 15 euros a day, you can hop on and off at 8 different locations. So we rode around for about an hour, and got off at the Champs-Elysses. From there, we decided to go to the supermarket. As we were figuring out our route, a peditaxi pulled up, and asked if we wanted a ride. We asked if he could drive us to the Monoprix, and he ageeed. It was like a rickshaw with a guy riding his bike and a covered two seater that he pulled behind him. It was quite fun. Little dnngerous at time when making a left turn in front of traffic. On the ride, we saw the Arc de Triumph. I tried videotaping it, but it was quite bumpy on the cobblestone streets. He made a right turn and we meandered among some streets, discovered our market was closed, but he knew of another one. It was a little odd when he pulled into a pedestrian area, and started driving on the sidewalk. Fortunately people moved out of our way! But some just looked at us funny. The Franprix he took us too ended up being closer to our apt. Not a bad way to get around the city. He was quite helpful too. We bought some staples – baguette, cheese, Spanish chorizo, French butter, yogurt, a few sweets, and tonight’s dinner.

We walked home, and found we were only 3 long French blocks from home. Long and good day 2.

Tomorrow we will hunt for chocolate!