07 Aug 2007 Paris Musee Orsay & Eiffel Tower

On Saturday, we got up early and had breakfast at the hotel. It was less expensive than what we spotted on the street and we were able to grab some extra cheese, meat, and bread to make sandwiches for lunch.

As we headed to walk to Musee Orsay, we spotted the hotel that we stayed at in 1994. We also found the outdoor market where we had purchased some broiler chicken. They are still in business and we bought it again for the evening dinner.

Musee Orsay is a fantastic museum in a converted rail station. We arrived early and missed most of the mass of people. They were having a Cézanne to Picasso, Masterpieces from the Vollard Gallery exhibit. This was really interesting to see since Vollard was he had achieved a special place in the art market by his passionate defence of unknown or "banned" artists. In particular Vollard was the first to organise a one-man exhibition devoted to Paul Cézanne in November 1895. Also interesting to read where artist would purchase other artist painting's from Vollard.

After about 4 hrs, we headed out and found nice place in the park across the street to have lunch and then walked to Eiffel Tower. We had planned to walk up to the second level (800 steps) but since there were some many people in line for both the lift and steps, we decided to just view the tower from below. It is an amazing structure. After we got our photos, we decided to take the bus back to our hotel, get food, and enjoy another evening on the Left Bank of Seine.

Click here to view more photos of Musee Orsay and Eiffel Tower.