On day 2, I woke up relatively rested although I had to rouse Sadie in time for our 10am tickets to the Musee D'Orsay. We grabbed croissants and coffee (pour moi) at a Cafe around the corner and walked about 15 minutes through the Place Vendome (past all the fancy jewelry shops and past lots of well-dressed professionals on their way to work), through the Tuileries (which were already hot and fragrant), and made it to the museum just in time. I rather like the timed tickets, actually, as it kept the lines moving.
Inside the light was beautiful and the feeling very relaxing, which is one of the reasons that is my favorite place to visit. I noted that there weren't that many guards, and posited that something about the atmosphere just made people behave in a civilized way.
We made our way through pretty much all the paintings, although we skipped or sped through some of the decorative arts sections. Sadie was excited to see the van Goghs and enjoyed Cezanne's striking still lifes. Lives? She was also especially taken with Ingres's Olympia, partly because it is mentioned in a book she is reading. We also spent some time just sitting in the central sculpture hall.
We stopped for a coffee and a sprite and fruit salad at the Cafe, where Sadie was inspired to sketch a little.
After a solid few hours at the museum, we walked down to Le Grand Epicerie, the very fancy grocery store. Sadie helped me pick out picnic provisions. From there we made our way to les Jardins du Luxemburg for a picnic. We found a shady spot on the grass and relaxed for a while. My phone died due to the big adapter falling out of the socket during the night, so we didn't get good pics in front of the palace (actually Sadie took some on her digital camera. More soon).
We got ice cream in the park and wandered until Sadie wanted to sit again, so we picked a spot near where some probably high school students or possibly college were painting landscapes in the park. Sadie watched them for a while and read her book while I dozed. Finally we made our way back home for a rest.
Later we went back out to a spot in our neighborhood (I had been looking for the place next door that got good reviews, but it was inexplicably closed). But this place had fun-seeming people sitting out front so we took a chance and were seated outside. Sadie wanted the steak and I didn't seem able to dissuade her, so I got the salad in hopes we could split. We didn't make it through, but luckily we took it home and stashed it in the mini bar fridge (spoiler: it was really good on a baguette the next day). The profiteroles rounded out the meal nicely, and we walked home, stopping at a kind of outdoor workout area for a minute to work off our meal.
An excellent first full day!
