Museums in Paris

Ria walking along the Seine, hanging from a big ring.












Ria climbing on one of Paris's many historical markers









The jet lag continues to haunt us. Thom and I woke in the middle of the night, and as my father so often observes, there is nothing that you can do to force yourself to sleep when you are just. not. tired. So we finished our taxes, and even that wasn't dull enough to put me back to sleep. I thought that a long New Yorker article about Andy Warhol might do it, but instead that was so interesting I finished the magazine, finally getting back to sleep towards dawn.

We'd planned to get up early so we could climb the Towers of Notre Dame before the lines grew too long, and yet when we could finally defeat the death grip that sleep and gravity had on us, it was 10:00, and by the time we got to Notre Dame, the lines were two and a half hours long. We also ran into that famous French inefficiency. We wanted to buy a MuseumPass, which provides admission to several dozen museums and monuments in the city, and (best of all) allows holders to take shorter lines into those attractions. At Notre Dame, there are two attractions: the towers, which are very popular and don't have a shorter Museum Pass line (because it's so small at the top, and so visitors are limited), and the crypt, which is far less popular, and consequently has very short lines. Both attractions accept the MuseumPass. Guess which one sells the MuseumPass.

To balance this, we met the famous French trait of helpfulness: the young man guiding people in the Towers line suggested that I go to a nearby attraction, the Conciergerie, where the lines are short. Amazingly, here the line had only a few people in front of us, and yet it took an age and a half to get the tickets. The young woman in the booth seemed to have no idea how to sell tickets, staring at her computer screen as if it were the first time she'd ever seen the assorted options: full-price, student-price, and museum-pass.

We entered the Conciergerie, which was a combination of a place where the King met with his advisors, and just a room away, prisoners were allowed to mill about freely. Thom noted that this was a poor security plan. Ria was disappointed to not see prisoners' cells.

Then we headed to the Musee d'Orsay, stopping for lunch at a brasserie filled with local businessmen in suits, and tourists grabbing lunch before going to the museum. Ria shared my stuffed tomatoes, and was surprised and somewhat delighted to discover that the stuffing wasn't breading, but instead was ground meat, which she quite liked.

The Musee d'Orsay is one of the world's great museums, with incredible architecture and incredible art. And a no-photography policy. As frustrating as it is to be barred from taking pictures, the rule definitely improves the museum-going experience. No longer stuck behind people who can't be bothered to look at the art, but feel compelled to snap photos of it, we saw more of the art and enjoyed our time there immensely. Ria got to be very good at identifying paintings by artist and determining whether the artist was concerned with light vs. with shape, for example. She's got more energy and patience than I'd expect from a six-year-old, and recalled many details and stories from assorted books we've read on the Impressionists.