Orangerie, Orsay & Strike Three at the Catacombs

At 9:00 PM last night I took an Amazon sleep-aid pill and chewed on a ZzzQuil sleep gummy; they put me out in less than a half-hour. At 1:00 AM, I was wide awake again, sitting up and reading on my phone. After about an hour, Kathy turned over and prayed for me, and I fell back to sleep until 7:30. There are two lessons I take away from this. 

1. Prayer is more powerful than pills. 
2. I’m starting to sound like an old man complaining about his gout and lumbago. When did that happen?

While Kathy got ready to go, I went downstairs to get some bread for breakfast, only to find the bakery closed. I forgot it was Saturday, when everything opens a little later. A little Googling found another one only a block away. When I got back we had coffee (decaf for me), orange juice, bread, cheese, butter, jam and salami for breakfast. By 8:30 AM, we were all on the subway headed for the Orangerie Museum.

The Orangerie was specifically designed to display the monumental water-lily paintings by Claude Monet. The paintings are displayed in two large oval rooms, one huge panel on each side of the room, with benches in the center to allow you to sit and contemplate the paintings. 

Talking is not permitted, and the docents spend a lot of their time shushing the offenders. While we were sitting observing this, Hosanna whispered to me, “Everyone thinks that no talking means just talking quieter.” Everyone includes Hosanna apparently.

Monet’s Water Lilies takes up the whole first floor of the museum. The other floors contain the collection of the art dealer Paul Guilaume, including paintings by Derain, Matisse, Modigliani, Picasso, Rousseau and Soutine. In addition, traveling exhibits with some connection to Monet and his vision are shown. The temporary exhibition we saw was called Out of Focus. Here is Kathy with one of the pieces. 

After three hours, we left the Orangerie, sat down for a rest, crossed the Seine, and got in the line for the Orsay museum. No reservations were required for the Orsay, and the line moved pretty quickly. 

The Orsay is inside an old converted train station which is very impressive.

Before exploring the exhibits, we headed for the iconic restaurant to get some lunch. Even though it was before noon, the restaurant was almost filled. After we were seated, a long line started forming. 

We spent the rest of the afternoon looking at Degas, Van Gogh, and a wonderful exhibition of Art Nouveau in the stairwells. Hosanna couldn’t stop taking pictures. This is Degas’ Little Fourteen-year-old Dancer, created in the 1880s. The model was a student at the Paris Opera Ballet dance school named Marie van Goethem. When we later went on an Opera tour, the guide expanded on her story.

As I mentioned, Hosanna photographed everything, but Kathy and I were partial to the Van Goghs.

One last thing we did was to pose for a picture in front of the iconic clock that appears on the front of Rick Steves’ Paris guide book. Surprisingly, taking a picture here was one of the only places we had to wait in line.

We got back to our hotel around 5:00 PM. We had made reservations for Matt and Hosanna to see the Catacombs at 6:00 PM, but earlier in the day we got an email saying that all visits were cancelled because of a “social action” (or strike). This was pretty disappointing because you had to buy tickets online, the tickets are only released one week before your visit, and the tickets sell out by the end of the day. That meant that we couldn’t make another reservation for the time they were visiting. 

Kathy and I went shopping, and out to Shawarma Lovers by ourselves, where we had the delicious chicken shawarma pita and talked with the owner, who emigrated from Syria in 2014. Then we went back to the apartment, closed the amazing blackout shutters and went to sleep.  In the meantime, the kids went to L’Amazonial for dinner and then out on the town to sample the nightlife of Paris.