Musée Marmottan & Champs Ēlysées

The day started with yet more culture. A trip to see, what was reputed to be, the best collection of paintings by Claude Monet. The location was the Musée Marmottan, which sits discreetly on the northern side of the Jardins du Ranelagh. To get there we had to catch two Metro trains: a number one and then change to a nine (we are getting better on the Metro). This was followed by a walk through the lovely Ranelagh Park. This is obviously a good area of Paris because there is less graffiti everywhere; there is generally more than in the UK. This park was obviously a popular choice for young children with their parents and ‘Grandmamma’.

The Museum proved to be a good choice with an excellent collection of paintings by Gauguin, Sisley and Renoir and with over 100 Monets in a purpose built basement. There were many of Monet’s renowned Water Lilies but, strangely, no hays stacks.
After several days of culture it was time for some fun. We therefore headed for the Champs Elysees for a look at the Renault showroom, which was full of their racing cars plus driving games and a race wheel change competition. Unfortunately, my bad back prevented me from competing I’m sorry to say. This was followed by indulging in a good helping of Häagen-Dazs ice cream at their local restaurant.

Notre Dame Cathedral & Musée d’Orsay

The day started, as usual, by my early morning trip to the boulangerie for, “Bonjour, deux crouisant et une bagette, sil vue plait”. It is amazing how much school boy French you can remember if you are hungry. However, today I found a real treat: today’s copy of The Times newspaper.

After breakfast we set off walking again. Notre Dame Cathedral was only about 30 minutes walk away and the route took us down Boulevard Henri IV and across the Seine to Īle St Louis and then on to the Īle de la Cité. The whole route was exceptionally interesting, because it took us through the oldest part of Paris, and we therefore took longer than expected. However, we braved the crowds and entered the 12th century Cathedral with the Rose window containing the oldest stained glass in Paris.

Next we took the RER (like a double-decker Metro), for one stop, to the Musée d’Orsay. This was once a railway station, saved from demolition in the 1970s and converted into an art gallery covering the period 1848 to 1914. Here you can savour the Impressionists and Post-Impressionists, including Monet, Renoir, Sisley and Manet. Not, in my humble opinion, their best works but I thought the building itself was wonderful.

Eiffel Tower & Musée de l’Orangerie

Ann and I have been to Paris several times before but have still not actually been up the Eiffel Tower. So, having been warned about the long queue, we set off early. The first part of the journey involved getting to grips with the Paris Metro and, after buying a 5 day pass, we arrived at the Eiffel Tower. After a 20 minute wait, followed by two lifts and a few minutes spent talking Ann into actually going up to the top, we arrived to enjoy the view from 276m up. It is hard to believe that when Gustave Eiffel’s iconic tower was built in 1889, it was criticised as ‘useless and monstrous’. The critics were silenced when two million visitors ascended the tower in the first year and over 200 million have now made the pilgrimage.

In the back streets, between the Eiffel Tower and Les Invalids we found a wonderful selection of shops selling fresh cheese and fine wine. The sight of all this food was too much for me to bear so we stopped for an excellent lunch at one of the pavement cafes. From there we walked to the Musée de l’Orangerie, which is strangely not mentioned in all good guide books. It is situated on the east side of the Place de la Concorde and is the place that houses some of Claude Monet’s last paintings. The collection highlight is Monet’s astonishing Water Lilies – eight huge panels conceived for the oval basement rooms of this former Tuileries greenhouse

Giverny

Those of you that know me really well will of course, I hope, realise that today is my birthday. By chance (plus a long slog up river the day before) we could have a rest day today so it was time to get the bikes out again. This is because we were moored at Vernonette and only 4km from the village of Giverny. Anyone who is interested in the Impressionist painters should make the pilgrimage to the village where Claude Monet lived from 1883 until his death in 1926. Firstly, the journey there was unexpectedly easy. The Harbour Master had very kindly suggested a cycle route along a disused railway. This took us past the back of some lovely houses and we were able to admire their gardens as we cycled along the relatively flat paved track. The village itself has been devoted to life in the Impressionist period. We were able to look around the house where Monet lived, which was little changed from the day that he died 71 years ago. However, the highlight of the day was visiting the gardens that were made famous by his paintings of the water lilies and the Japanese bridge.

We also visited the Musee Americain – a large American gallery housing the paintings of several expatriate American Impressionist painters that lived and painted in the village during that period. After the effort of cycling there we enjoyed a glorious lunch, at a nearby restaurant, and then wobbled our way back to Jomima on our bikes.