Paris Journal 2012 – Barbara Joy Cooley Home: barbarajoycooley.com

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If someone asked us to recommend just one museum to see in Paris, we’d say go to the Musée Marmottan Monet. That’s how much we like it. For one thing, it is a quintessential Parisian place, in a wonderful old home in the chic 16^th arrondissement, on a lovely park with mature trees – a park that is well-used and loved by its neighborhood. Secondly, it has the best collection of Impressionist paintings, and we think that genre is very, very French. Third, it is just the right size for a museum – not too small, not too big. Fourth, it is well run, by the Foundation for the Institut des Beaux Arts. Fifth, in addition to the world-class collection of Impressionist paintings, there are other interesting things to see, like Paul Marmottan’s collection of medieval religious art, including some beautiful illuminated manuscripts. In addition to the beautiful old home, the museum also has a modern wing with a lower level gallery which was designed for showing the large Impressionist works, including a number of Monet’s famous water lily canvases, to their best advantage. As I’ve mentioned before, this museum is not included on the 3-, 4- or 5-day Paris museum passes. That’s because its ownership is different – it is private, not a national or City of Paris museum. Members of the Friends of the Louvre, however, do get free admission to the Musée Marmottan Monet. Teachers who have their teacher identification get half-price admission, as do students. Journalists (with their credentials) are admitted free of charge. But regular adult admission is only 10 euros, and this museum is well worth it. We walked to the museum, taking plenty of time to shoot photos along the way. Even so, we were inside, starting to look at paintings when it was only an hour from the time we’d left the apartment. The walk is uphill – leaving the former swamp of Grenelle, crossing the Seine, and walking up the hill of the 16^th arrondissement. We passed through the Beaugrenelle construction site again, and admired the almost completed installation of the passerelle framework over rue Linois. While crossing the Pont de Grenelle, we paused to photograph the Statue of Liberty that is positioned at the end of the Île aux Cygnes. We walked alongside the big, round Radio France building, which is undergoing extensive renovations. The construction fencing is graced by amusing cartoon images. Even with all the construction, people where going in and out of two of its many entrances. (Each entrance is creatively named for a letter of the alphabet.) At least part of the strange building is still being used for normal operations. At last, we were at the base of the hilly part of the rue Boulainvilliers, and the climb began. This street has some buildings that charm me because of their old-village look, or because of their excellent examples of opulent Haussmannian style. When we reached the rue des Vignes, we took a slight left. Very soon, we traversed the rue l’Argiliere and were standing in front of the restaurant La Gare, a chic-looking place in a former railroad station. We probably should have stopped there for lunch, but we were too anxious to get to the museum. So we continued on, into the Jardin du Ranelagh, one of the many beautiful parks created around 1860 as part of Haussmann’s re-do of Paris. We spent a couple hours looking at the museum’s fine collections and the old home and its furniture as well. All I can say is, if you come to Paris, this is the most important art museum for you to see. If you’d like, you can take a virtual tour of the museum by clicking here. Fortunately, the museum does not allow photography. I say “fortunately,” because even with this prohibition, I still took 70 some photos yesterday, during our walk to and from the museum, and even after we arrived at home, because of a beautiful sunset and moon in the night sky. When we left the museum, we continued to the end of the rue Louis Bouilly (named for a portrait painter whose works Paul Marmottan also collected), to see the park called Square des Ecrivains Combattants Morts pour La France. Such brilliant, colorful flowerbeds we found in this park! We sat on a park bench for a while and joked about what kinds of words and punctuation might be used by combative writers (ecrivains). When we exhausted that supply of entertainment, we got up and began the walk downhill to Les Ondes, an appropriately named brasserie across from Radio France. (“Ondes” are waves, as in radio waves.) We wanted to try the Ogre, a neighboring resto that we’d heard about, but it was closed. Even Ogres go on vacation. Les Ondes, however, was open, with continuous service, so we could have a very late lunch there (4:30 – 5PM). I ordered a Niçoise salad, and Tom ordered the cheese plate. We lingered for quite a while. I admired the décor, which included old books arranged on a shelf in a couple corners, and composers names painted whimsically on the ceiling, as well as a stunning etched glass panel that formed half of a room divider. The salad was good. Strangely, it had strips of bell peppers in place of the usual green beans found in a Niçoise. We bought a baguette at the bakery that is nearest the apartment, then at last we were home, at around 6PM. As the evening went on, it was clearly going to have a lovely sunset, so we decided to stay in and watch, from our balcony. Find me on Facebook

Thursday, August 23, 2012 Construction fencing art at the Beaugrenelle shows whit it might look like when finished. Note the top of the Eiffel Tower peeking out above the fence, and a detail of the artist’s work, below. Cartoon images from the Radio France construction fence. Les Ondes, a continuous-service brasserie across from Radio France on the rue des Boulainvilliers. ← Previous Next →