Day 6 - Musee d'Orsay

We woke up Tuesday to an absolutely beautiful morning! Such an amazing view from our hotel.

Sacre Coeur...

Notre Dame...

and Les Invalides. We were heading there later that day.

We were supposed to go to Versailles on Tuesday but, due to our late night the previous night, we decided to sleep in a little and stay in Pairs that day. The Crowes slept in much longer than we did; we were up and out by 9:00, heading over to Musee d'Orsay for the morning.

The square next to the museum displays these six bronze allegorical sculptures representing the continents of the world.

The line was super long! We ended up waiting in line for about 20 minutes before we struck up a conversation with a mom and her teenage son behind us, who just happened to be Mormon, and we found out from them that we were in the wrong line. Ugh! We had to start all over again in the line for people who did not have a Paris Pass. Oh, well.

The museum was awesome and we spent just over 3 hours there. The museum holds mainly French art dating from 1848-1914, including paintings, sculptures, furniture, and photography.

I found Napoleon.

The Musee d'Orsay Clock.

It houses the largest collection of impressionist and post-Impressionist masterpieces in the world, by painters including Monet, Manet, Degas, Renoir, Cezanne, Gauguin, and Van Gogh.

David and I both loved this painting.

I loved the polar bear.

And the desert scenes.

Vincent Van Gogh's Starry Night Over the Rhone.

An art class I subbed for was painting their own version of this painting, Cezanne's Apples and Oranges, so I made sure to grab a picture of it.

Monet.

Degas - Rehearsal on Stage...

and L'Absinthe.

Our selfie of the interior.

We were able to meet up with the Crowes and had one of my favorite memories of the trip - we grabbed some sandwiches and had a picnic lunch along the Seine. And one of my favorite moments? A pigeon came flying close to Josh and he totally kicked it!

Enjoying my tasty eclair!

After we ate, we walked along the Seine, enjoying once again all the sights of Pairs.

We stopped in front of this building for a time, Foreign Affairs, we think. Their guards were in full regalia and lined up, obviously expecting someone important.

There were even snipers up on the roof. We waited for awhile to see who would show up but finally decided to keep going.

We stopped at the Pont Alexandre III, the bridge that is widely regarded as the most ornate, extravagant bridge in Paris, to take pictures. It was built between 1896 and 1900 and is named after Tsar Alexander III who had concluded the Franco-Russian Alliance in 1892. His son Nicholas II laid the foundation stone in 1896.

The Nymph reliefs are at the center of the arches over the Seine and are memorials to the Franco-Russian Alliance.  The Nymphs of the Seine has a relief of the arms of France, and faces the Nymphs of the Neva with the arms of Imperial Russia.

Four pillars provide stabilizing counterweight to the bridge's arch and on each base sits an allegorical sculpture representing France in a different era: King Charlemagne, the Renaissance, King Louis XIV, and modern times.

The bridge has an array of masterful sculptures of lions, cherubs, nymphs, maidens, cupids, water spirits, fish, scalloped seashells, and sea monsters.

The four gilt-bronze statues of Fames that watch over the bridge. These magnificent gilded allegorical statues crown the pillars - the Sciences, Arts, Commerce, and Industry each bring the winged horse Pegasus to heel.