Sisters in Paris

Friday - Lunch in the Subway, and a Gourmet Dinner!

Friday we spent more time knocking places off our list. Dar & I slipped out early to buy croissants for breakfast, and then the three of us dropped down into the subway. 

Our first destination today was the Musee d'Orsay.

view from inside the Musee d'Orsay, Sacre Coeur can be seen in the far distance.

The building that houses the museum was originally a train station, the Gare d'Orsay. In 1970 the train station was about to be demolished, but the minister of cultural affairs stepped in and stopped it from happening. It was then decided to turn the beautiful old building into a museum to house Art from the latter half of the 19th and first part of the 20th century. Darlene loves impressionist Art, so she was in her glory wandering through halls of Monet and Renoir. 

We had a very exciting celebrity sighting in the Musee d'Orsay. As we were leaving, Cathy nodded towards a woman and said she looked familiar. It was Helen Mirren! She was conversely politely in French with a small circle of fans. She is even more beautiful in person than on the screen. 

We had brought cheese sandwiches with us, to eat on a bench somewhere. Well, it was pouring rain when we left the Musee d'Orsay. So we opted to take our sandwiches down into the subway and eat them there. We sat on a platform, and munched away. It was actually pretty interesting to sit still at the subway, watching the people come and go. 

After our funny little lunch, we got on another train and headed to the Georges Pompidou Centre for Modern Art. This is one of my favourite museums, partly because of its design (it's inside out), and because it houses the work of one of my favourite artists, Kandinsky. 

After I had had my fill of Art (I think my sisters had patiently been waiting for that moment for a while), we set off to wander through the Marais neighbourhood to dinner in the Bastille district. 

My biggest pet peeve of this trip was the number of narcissistic people who stand in front of incredible works of Art and take pictures of THEMSELVES!

We headed to the Bastille neighbourhood, because we had a reservation at a VEGAN gourmet restaurant. It is called the Gentle Gourmet, and the meal was wonderful.