Paris – Day 5

Yesterday was about food… today I sampled the Musée d’Orsay, following another productive days with at the 4D office here.

The Musée d’Orsay is one of the premier museums in Paris, and is best known for its collection of art from the Impressions period. Monet, Renoir, Cézanne, Degas, Rodin, and more. I knew it would be a highlight of my trip, and it didn’t disappoint.

After leaving work, I stopped at the hotel to drop off my backpack and get my four-day Museum Pass. The Museum Pass is good at many of the most popular Paris museums, and besides saving money it lets you avoid the long lines of people waiting to buy tickets to enter a location. I chose to not bring the camera; rather, I’d travel light, and bring the camera when returning on Saturday (I am including some relevant photos I took on Saturday in this post).

I took the metro (line 1, then changing to line 12) and arrived at the museum less than 15 minutes after leaving my hotel. Have I mentioned that I like the metro?

The Orsay is open late on Thursdays, until 9:30, and in order to maximize my time, I immediately entered, deciding to have a late dinner after the museum closed. I also decided to spend my time tonight on the two lower levels, which are primarily displaying art from periods other than the Impressionism period. Saturday I would return and go to the top level, saving the best for last.

The Orsay used to be a train station, and has a large, open atrium with some of the largest works in the collections. I snapped this picture from a walkway on the 5th floor, above the main entrance, looking across the length of the museum.

The walkway I was on is behind the glass on which this very large clock is mounted.

There quite a few large statues in the atrium.

These smaller busts are quite interesting. They use different materials to achieve the effect of clothing, skin color, etc.

This status is of Napolean’s only son and his dog.

Here’s another statue using the multiple material technique.

These were just a few of the many, many amazing statues, painting, sketches, and more that I saw Thursday night. I returned Saturday morning, and will post more about that day’s visit, with pictures, later.

I stayed until closing, then walked back towards the metro stop, and ate dinner at a nice cafe nearby. I had a grilled lamb dish, a small carafe of red wine, and the requisite coffee. Another enjoyable day concluded.

Note on the photos — you may notice some of them are somewhat grainy. This is an artifact caused by using a higher ISO setting due to the low light conditions found in many areas of the museum. Flashes are not allowed, and generally I prefer the more natural look that results when a flash isn’t used. In these conditions, I keep the camera set in “Auto ISO” mode, which will automatically increase the ISO setting if required to achieve an adequate exposure. With a digital camera, a higher ISO is essentially increasing the sensitivity of the sensors, and this increases the noise in the image.