Rodin – The Luxemburg Gardens – The Musee d'Orsay

Walking the streets on Sunday morning is different than any other morning of the week. It is almost as if everyone is sleeping in with a hangover from partying too hard on Saturday night. What are the chances of that? It was very quiet and almost no traffic at 9:00 on Sunday morning. Even the neighborhood bakery was closed.

NO Pastry today - Bummer

Me and my Baby at the Luxemburg Gardens

Chief Inspector Linda

We took advantage of the great weather and quite streets to hike to the Luxemburg Gardens where some of the Paris hardcore health fanatics were running on the track that was the perimeter of the gardens. Walking through the gardens was a wonderful way to start the day. We did notice that although the French People are much thinner than Americans, their pigeons are fatter than ours. Perhaps they are feeding their McDonalds to the pigeons?

Can he take off?

Our next destination was the Rodin Museum. After a mandatory coffee stop, we arrived and were able to walk right. It is important to note that most people pronounce Rodin as Rodan, the principle character in the 1959 cinematic masterpiece, in which a giant flying reptile destroys Tokyo, and battles with Godzilla. If you are expecting to see Rodan, you might be disappointed. This museum is full of mostly bronze statues. They are marvelous statues though, and a great collection of Rodin's work as well as some works done by his friends and students.

Linda, Thinker, Eiffel Tower

Burghers of Calais

Rodin Museum

Our next stop to round out the afternoon was the Musee d'Orsay the former train station that now has more impressionist, post impressionist, neo impressionist works of art than you can shake a stick at. (Actually I am pretty sure that shaking a stick at the paintings is not allowed and would get you thrown out.) In addition to the paintings and sculpture they have a great collection of Art Nouveau furniture that fills several rooms.

Musee d'Orsay

We stopped back at the apartment for supper and a brief rest, and then headed to the Eiffel Tower to watch the sunset. We went up as high as they would let you walk, up to the second level. It is plenty high enough and has a great view. Even better, for some reason the elevator line has a much longer line. I am sure some of the same people were still waiting in line by the time we came down.

At the Eiffel Tower

That's it for today, off to bed to rest up for our final couple of days in Paris.

Good night.

More pictures from today at this PicasaLink.

Stephen and Linda