Pounding the pavement in Paris

Today was my first full day in Paris. I'm glad that my friends insisted I buy tennis shoes to wear on this trip and my feet are especially thankful for that suggestion. Now I took a pedometer with me, but I think it's broken because it says I only walked 28, 161 steps. That's crazy! I walked more than that, if you just look at the map I covered plenty of ground but I digress. Let's see the plan for today was to visit the Rodin Museum and Musee de l'Armee in the morning, then in the afternoon it was the Musee de l'Orangerie and the Louvre. What ended up happening was me walking around the block of the Rodin Museum because even though I left my hotel around 8am the museum wasn't open until 9:30am. So I tried looking for a cafe that wasn't too crowded and ended up finding a bakery where I got a small loaf of bread the size of my fist and a brioche au sucre, which is just French for bread with sugar on top. I walked around the neighborhood not wandering far from the main streets and came up this church which had plenty of flying butresses. (Architecture: a segmental arch transmitting an outward and downward thrust to a solid buttress that through its inertia transforms the thrust into a vertical one.)It was the Church of Saint Clotilde and I had my small breakfast of bread in front of it as I admired the architectural style of the building.
The Rodin Museum still wasn't open when I finished my meager breakfast so I decided to follow the walls around the Rodin Museum. I found the building of Ariculture, the President's Place, the Vice-President's place and a school. By the time I made it around the whole block it was near opening time so I just stood in line with a few others until they let us in the Museum. Now I read about the Rodin Museum in the book Kissing Adrien by Siri Mitchell and I wanted to see the 'Hands of God', 'The Kiss', 'The Gates of Hell' and of course the ever famous 'the Thinker' sculpture that Rodin made. Can I just say that being so close up to these works of art is amazing! You can see where the instruments that he used in molding these things are on the sculpture.

The building where the Rodin Museum is also had some of his sculptures in the garden, which was a beautiful garden by the way. I can only imagine what it must look like in the spring when the flowers are in bloom.

Then it was off to the Musee de l'Armee. I first went into the the Army Museum French War wing, at least I think it was the French War. The place had huge amounts of armor and weaponry. They had knight's armor that you see in those Fairy Tales, swords, daggers, lances, archery material and even horse armor. It was awesome! If you're a guy, this is your kind of museum. But I could so easily picture a knight riding up his white horse with all the things they had in this wing. Then it was time to pay homage to one of the most famous short person and Frenchmen in all of History, Napoleon Bonaparte. His tomb is located under the golden dome and you have to go down the steps to actually see it. For a small guy he has a really big coffin!

By the time I was done paying my homage to Napoleon my stomach was starting to protest at such a small breakfast I had. So I walked up the Esplanade des Invaldides (park area in front of the museum) and onto the Pont Alexander III (bridge) looking to find my way to Rue de Rivoli where Angelina's is located. I had heard that Angelina has the best hot chocolate in Paris and since I really didn't have a breakfast drink that sounded so good. Plus it was near the next museum on my list of things to see. What I hadn't counted on was seeing and walking around the Place de la Concorde, which is this huge roundabout area. There is an obelisk right in the center of it and in the days of the French Revolution this was where the guillotine used to be. A lavish fountain is on either side of this monument.

Lunch was at Angelina and I must say that the hype about their hot chocolate, chocolat l'African was true. It was full bodied, thick,rich and you could add as much cream to the mixture to help diffuse the richness of the chocolate. Bon! I ordered something that I read as beef du Angelina, which sounded really good. What I got on the otherhand was something unexpected. I ended up ordering steak tartare, yes that is raw meat on my plate with a side of salade and French fries. Did I eat it? Yup! All the raw meat along with that egg yolk. I had read beforehand that steak tartare is a French delicacy but I certainly wasn't planning it for lunch today. Oh well, part of my gastronomic experience. Plus the Perrier helped with the digestion of the whole meal.

I took a little break to help with that rather filling meal to sit and watch the ducks in one of the fountains at the Jardin des Tuileries. Also wrote down some notes in my small handy-dandy notebook and a postcard. Then it was off to see Monet, Renoir, Cezanne, Derain, and Chaim Soutine just to name a few painters who's works are shown at the Musee de l'Orangerie. Seeing their paintings up close was just awe-inspiring, you can see each of their brush strokes and how the light plays off the bumps of the acrylic or paint. Wow! But the most wonderful thing about this museum was the 'Water Lillies' series, several of which are planked on all four walls of an oval room. (Yes I know that is an oxymoron, but there is such a room and you should go to L'Orangerie if you don't belive me.). There are two oval rooms and if you sit still in them you will notice the lighting changes and it affects the paintings on the wall. It is such a soothing place to sit and visit. My pictures do not do these things justic so I will just leave it up to your imagination. Then I took some time to sit and watch these little kids playing with sailboats in the fountain at the Jardin des Tuileries. It was just like being in a living painting. I had meant to go to the Louvre after dinner since on Wed. it is open until 9:45pm but first I needed to get an adaptor so I saw that the Galeries Lafayette wasn't too far away. Talk about a mall! This place was huge and it had two smaller buildings next to the main one all of which are located behind the Opera Garnier. There was lots and lots of people, not just tourist but your everday Frenchman as well. I ended up walkin three times between all three buildings trying to locate the department that had electrical wall adapters. It was located in the bottome of the Lafayette Masion building in the back corner past all the lovely housewares and kitchen appliances. So if you ever come to Paris and forget your electrical adaptor, now you know where to get it and won't spend almost two hours like me walking around three different buildings. Needless to say I was exhausted! In the Lafayette Gourmet store I got a sandwich, bottled water and cookies then flagged down a taxi since it was dark (and I made a promise to "Bob" about doing this =) and asked him to take me to the Eiffel Tower. Where I had my picnic lunch with the lights of the tower gleaming down on me as I sat on a park bench to give my feet a rest before their final walk back to my hotel.