A week after our return from Marseille, I spent a couple of days in Paris for a work assignment that left me a little time for strolling around, so my sister decided to come along with me. (Special note for our Parisian friends – please forgive the “undercover” action, but at this time of my life I felt just totally unable to socialize…)
Normally, this is the kind of opportunity in which I would have squeezed at least 4 museum visits, but this time, I managed only two.
First, we went to see an Impressionist exhibition at Musée Marmottan, showing only privately owned paintings. This exhibition is unfortunately finished, but you can see some of the paintings on the museum’s website. This lavish little palace is well worth a visit at any time, with a beautiful permanent collection and interesting exhibitions. Right now, there is one running until January 18th called “Impression, soleil levant”, of course referring to Monet’s famous painting “responsible” for the artist group’s name.
If you have never been to Paris before, there are two important things to consider before planning your visits: the distance between destinations and the time you may spend queuing in a museum’s line – up to three or four hours for the most popular museums or exhibitions (make that anything with Louvre, Musée d’Orsay, Impressionist, Picasso and so forth in its name…)
Thus, I strongly recommend planning in advance and trying to buy tickets online or the night before where this is possible (in general, the cash desk closes 30 minutes before the museum closes and just before is a good moment to either get in for a speedy glimpse or for buying your ticket for the next day).
If it is too late for planning, you might want to check out one of the lesser-known museums instead – they are just plentiful in Paris.
The other factor I mentioned are the distances – driving in Paris is a nightmare, so I’d mostly recommend the metro, but even here, it might take you up to one hour to get from one point to another if you have to change lines.
The bus is nice, but beware the traffic jams – however, this is a cool transportation on Sundays and on workdays after the rush hour…
You could also rent a bicycle (“Vélib’”), hop on a boat (bateau-bus) or walk.
Things you could do by foot if you don’t mind doing it for an hour: walk from the Louvre to the Musée d’Orsay (and plan a little stop at one of the oldest shops for art supplies in town, Sennelier’s Couleurs du Quai Voltaire).
For all of the above-mentioned reasons, we decided that our next stop after Musée Marmottan would be the museum of the thirties (Musée Des Années 30) in western suburb Boulogne-Billancourt, since neither my sister nor I had ever seen it before and it was situated along the same metro line as the Musée Marmottan.
Now this was maybe a bit far away, but well worth the visit and on this late Friday afternoon, we were almost the only visitors, which made for a really relaxed stay and plenty of time to look at the paintings.
In between appointments in St Germain des Prés the next day, we were lucky enough to see a wonderful huge exhibition dedicated to an artist I adore: H.Craig Hanna at Laurence Esnol’s gallery. When discovering his works some years ago, the latter was, quite understandably, so totally smitten with his fantastic portraits and moody landscapes that she decided to open her gallery especially for this artist.
Pictures, from top to bottom:
Detail of a Parisian window
The Eiffel tower (of course…)
The Seine (as seen from the Eiffel tower)
Notre Dame de Paris
Locks for love tokens
An early Magnolia
The Métro at Saint Germain des Prés
Along the Seine at night
Sacré Coeur
Artworks at Musée des Années 30
A bridge detail
The rue Saint Antoine at Métro St Paul
An apt tag in the city of love
The Dôme des Invalides
(All the “aerial” views are from my archives and have been taken either from the Eiffel tower or the Arc de Triomphe when I showed these obligatory stops to my son a couple of years ago…)