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.

Paris - Palace of Versailles

Last Friday, 3 Aug 2007, we (Helen, Helen's brother David, and Rick) walked over to the Waterloo rail station at 4:30AM to catch the 5:34AM Eurostar to Paris. The train goes to Dover and then through the Channel Tunnel (Chunnel) to Calais France and then to Paris. After a 3hr ride, we were in Gare Du Nord rail station. Wonderful way to travel to Paris.

We immediately, purchased transportation and entry tickets to "Palace of Versailles". While taking the metro to get to our train, David forgot (or was not aware) to retrieve his ticket when we entered the first metro station. Since he did not have his ticket, he could not go through the entry gate to the second metro stop. After Helen tried to explain that we just purchased the ticket and David accidentally left it at the prior stop, we had to purchase an additional travel ticket (5.60 euros). When we arrived about 1hr later, there were thousands of people queuing to get into the Palace. We elected to stroll around the magnificent jardin (garden) at Versailles. The flowers were in full bloom. We found a nice quite place to eat our lunch and enjoyed the view of the jardin. We then continued across the jardin to Maria-Antoinette's Estates. This area just opened to the public in June 2006 and was her private escape area on the Palace grounds. Very impressive.

After a couple hours, we then entered into the Palace, which was built for King Louie XIV in 1682. This palace is massive and every room decorated from ceiling to floor with paintings, jewels, furniture, and more portraits of the Royal Family. We lasted until about 5:30 and enjoyed every moment.

We were able to take the train back in Paris and after a short walk we arrived at our hotel for the night. We picked up some wine and food and then walked over to the Left Bank of the Seine river near Notre Dame to eat our dinner with the Parisians lining the bank.

To view more photos of our first day in Paris and Versailles, click here.