Museum Marathon

For the past 3 days, we’ve been getting our money’s worth out of our Paris Museum Passes. Okay, that’s not as dorky as it sounds. Yes, we did purchase 4-day passes, but many attractions that are covered aren’t technically museums. For example, the Paris Sewer Tour. What a surprise that was! We learned that the sewer tunnels are labeled with the street names that run above them.

   

Another underground attraction, the Paris Archaeological Crypt, shows the Roman ruins in the Notre Dame area.

                                       

From below the ground to high above it, the Museum Pass also covered the entrance fee to the Arc de Triomphe. We climbed all 284 steps up, most on a spiral staircase.

   

The view from the top was spectacular. We enjoyed picking out familiar sights as well as watching the crazy traffic, where 12 streets converge and there are no traffic lights! You couldn’t pay me enough to drive down there.

   

Of course, the most famous Paris museum of all, the Louvre, was on our must-see list.

                                     

                   

Bill was thrilled that a vast exhibit of Egyptian artifacts was on display.

                          

Both of us really enjoyed visiting two other art museums, the Orsay and the modern art museum in the Pompidou Center. The Orsay has a lot of paintings by the Impressionists which was especially relevant for us since we visited the home and gardens of Claude Monet last week, and the week before we went to Arles where Vincent Van Gogh spent time.

   

We weren’t allowed to take any photos of the artwork inside the Orsay, which is located in the renovated old train station building.

Quite different from the Louvre and the Orsay, the modern art museum was equally enjoyable. My favorite was the portrait below. From a distance, you can’t tell how it was created so I took a close-up of the lower right corner.

   

The Rodin Museum is located in a mansion that was his home. It was filled with his sculptures both inside and out in the gardens, where we saw his arguably most famous piece, The Thinker.

           

The Army Museum is made up of several sections. One of the big attractions is the tomb of Napolean which is housed under a huge, ornate gold dome. Below you can see it from the outside and the inside:

              

The tomb is recessed into the ground for a simple reason. Napolean wanted everyone to bow to him, even after he died. (I must add here that Bill remembered this little tidbit from our visit to Paris 41 years ago!!!!) Look at how small the people look to get an idea of the massive size of this tomb.

                                            

We have sore feet after all of these museum visits; my pedometer shows a total of 24.54 miles for the past 3 days. Tomorrow we won’t be sitting around either. The palace at Versailles is covered by our pass so that’s where we’ll be headed.