Ow, ow, my legs, my LEGS.

We are SORE. Today we spent almost every single hour on our feet, and our legs are definitely staging a mighty protest! But we had a lot of fun today.

Our morning was filled with a tour of the beautiful Musee d'Orsay, the museum home of French art of 1848-1914. Even though we arrived right when the museum opened, we still had to wait in a long winding line that snaked outside of the museum. (Though if we thought THAT was bad...read on.) The museum is in an old converted train station and it is truly a beautiful setting for all the artwork. We spent three hours meandering through the rooms (diligently using our Rick Steves guidebook!)

Aerial view of the main room at the Orsay.

The Impressionist rooms are the most famous at the Orsay and we got to see many famous paintings that we recognized instantly. Monet, Manet, Rodin, Gauguin, Toulouse-Lautrec, Degas, Van Gogh, Cezanne... we were saturated by the big shots!

Just one of the many...!

The Orsay used to have a hotel and the main ballroom was the hottest hangout for high society. The room was really beautiful:

Just one corner in the Grand Ballroom.

After the Orsay we were already pooped, but it was only noon, so we pressed on. We walked to the Rue Cler neighborhood to eat at the famous Cafe Marche (noted by Rick in his book as the place to see and be seen for lunch. ) Then we walked all the way back to L'Hotel des Invalides, the enormous military hospital/museum/place where famous people are buried, etc. I'm afraid we didn't do the place enough justice, but we did visit Napoleon's Tomb. And we had every intention of visiting one of the military museums, but we just... couldn't.

Instead, we went here:




No explanations needed. We waited in line for over an hour and the prices, again, were villanously high. But still. The views were worth it.

Crashing now.... Versailles tomorrow!