Our last two days in Paris

The second museum day

Yesterday we visited the Museum of Decorative Arts, a branch of the Louvre, and had lunch at their outside cafe.  It was rather pricey at $40 Euros for two salads, a coffee and a small glass of wine, but you pay for the ambience and the location.  We enjoyed watching people lounging on the lawns at the Tuilleries.

By the way, the museum was fascinating, tracing the history of decoration, furniture and clothing from Medieval times up to the present.  Take a look:

The afternoon was somewhat disappointing as one of the two main galleries at L'Orangerie was closed. We got to see the two gorgeous rooms showing Monet's water lilies but the collection of Paul Guillaume, who collected so many wonderful paintings of Cezanne, Matisse, Modigliani, Renoir, Picasso, etc., was closed.  These were some of the paintings I really wanted to see. But c'est la vie, as they say in France.  Next time!

After two days of museum going we were tuckered out so it was an early night after a marvellous dinner in a Moroccan restaurant, with leftovers for the next day.

Last day: Rue Cler and Montmartre

This morning after a night of restorative sleep we tackled two neighbourhoods.  The first, Rue Cler, is one I wouldn't have known about without Rick Steves' Paris guide.  This is a bourgouise neighbourhood not far from the Eiffle Tower where a couple of streets are closed to traffic and the residents of the area come to shop.  It is a slice of upper-middle-class everyday Paris.  And I think I want to live there.  

Here are a few images of this special place:

Note the African nanny here. We saw a lot of this.

I actually went into a store and bought a lovely scarf (all in French, I might add).  Then we took the metro up to Montemartre, the area of artists and bohemians at the turn of the last century.  When I was a youngish teenager I read a biography of Modigliani and since then I've always wanted to visit this bastion of art and counter-culture.  Well today it's more of a tourist trap, but I enjoyed seeing Renoir's home ...

and the place where Picasso invented cubism.

Tonight we're at home eating leftover Moroccan food and cleaning the apartment. Tomorrow morning we get the train  to Bordeaux and the next stage of our trip.