Well. Wednesday was quite the day for mileage! Jack and I must have walked 8-9 miles over the course of the day. We decided to take the metro to the Champs D’Elysee area then walked the street looking at all the shops along the way.
While there are many stores there such as Disney and Zara, Gap and the like, there are also some nice high-end shops, most notably the one I call the “mothership”, Louis Vuitton, four stories of splendor and luxury. This is a great favorite of mine and a place I have previously visited and made purchases over the years, some large, some small. It’s a beautiful place to walk through, and buying an item there, no matter how small, guarantees that you will be treated like royalty. This is truly a place where the customer comes first (I know for these prices you should!) and this level of service is something you rarely see anymore. Jack and I bought a couple of small things to remember this wonderful trip but not to break the bank since we still have almost three weeks in Europe and of course still have Italy to come!
We were exhausted after a full day of walking all around this area of Paris and came home and made dinner in and then to bed.
Today, Thursday, we left the house the earliest yet, 8:30am! We have often not been out of bed at that time during this trip. We were up early because we wanted to get to the Musee D’Orsay close to opening time of 9:30 and then had an afternoon tour planned to Giverny to see Monet’s home and beautiful gardens. We took the Metro to the museum and ended up in the wrong place and had a stressful time at morning rush hour negotiating the route so it was a bit of a rough start. Once we got there, there was a tremendously long line to get in and we wondered if we should scrap the idea since we had a definite time we had to catch the tour later. We decided to just stick with it and that turned out to be smart since when we finally got in we were told that the entrance was free for the day! (normally 15 euros per person). Needless to say we were pleased, most particularly since we were not going to be able to stay for more than a few hours or so. The building itself is an old railway station that has been converted to a museum, a visionary idea of design that you almost get accustomed to in Paris.
The D’Orsay is the premier museum in France for impressionistic artwork, It is chock full of Monet, Cezanne, Renoir, Pisarro et.al. They had a special exhibit of Cezanne portraits, a lesser known part of his oeuvre, very interesting and unusual portraiture. We then looked at many of the other impressionists in the collection and left feeling like it was a productive few hours.
The tour to Giverny was well worth it. It was such a treat to be able to just sit in a comfortable bus and let someone else get us there and back. It also was the good opportunity for a nap which Jack and I both availed ourselves of. The gardens were simply spectacular and made one understand how they became the focus of Monet’s painting for the last 40 years of his life.
A long walk home with a stop for a cocktail and then another stop down the road from our place for salads and a shared pizza of rocket and fresh mozzarella ended a lovely day.
Adventures after Retirement 