Today was absolutely splendid! It was really hot, so we decided to keep everything low key. (We're at the end of our trip and almost at the end of our energy, so that wasn't a hard decision to make!) :-) We slept in late and decided to have a leisurely breakfast at a Rue Cler cafe instead of our usual crepes-to-go. It was so delicious and a real treat to have a slow morning! Then we walked a few blocks down to the Eiffel Tower and hung out at the big Champs du Mars park for a couple of hours. It's not nearly as beautiful as the Tuileries and Luxembourg, but it's grassy and has shade and probably the best view of just about any park in the world! My photo shots were limited because there's only so much you can do with a big, tall tower, but I had fun with the filters and effects after the fact!
The Eiffel Tower was built for the 1889 World's Fair in Paris. It was the centennial of the fall of the Bastille (French Revolution), and Gustave Eiffel built a magnificent centerpiece for the Parisians to celebrate with. However, at first the French were disgusted by the design. There are stories of Parisians refusing to eat at any place where they could see the horror of the tower.
The tower is 1,000 feet high, almost twice as tall as the Washington Monument which was the tallest at that time. Eiffel was thrilled that he was building the tallest structure, by far, and he bragged about it often. But the Americans had a little fun with the fact that the engineering ideas he used came from British and American engineers; PLUS the elevator installed in the Eiffel Tower was an OTIS - an American elevator. So we bragged about that quite often!
After we'd had our fill of the beautiful view, we headed across the street and down the stairs to the river. The Eiffel Tower part of the riverbank is where all the Seine boat cruises start. We've done this before, and it's totally a tourist thing to do, but it's actually a really quiet and cool way to see the sights along the river. The breeze comes in the open top, and the water is just beautiful! This particular river cruise was a hop-on-hop-off cruise, so we got off at the Musee d'Orsay which was the very next stop.
The Orsay is one of my favorite art museums because the large majority of it is devoted to the Impressionists! Plus it's in a gorgeous building. (The building used to be a big train station. They were going to tear it down in the 1980s, but then they decided to use it for this museum.) "In the centre of Paris on the banks of the Seine, opposite the Tuileries Gardens, the museum was installed in the former Orsay railway station, built for the Universal Exhibition of 1900. So the building itself could be seen as the first "work of art" in the Musee d'Orsay, which displays collections of art from the period 1848 to 1914." You're not allowed to take pictures inside except for the main hall, so these pictures are almost all from the internet
This is a view of the Basilica of Sacre Coeur through one of the huge clocks on the upper level of the Orsay. Tammy took this last time we were here three years ago, but today it was too crowded to get a good shot.
These next three pictures are of our absolute favorite paintings in the Orsay. We've made sure to see these every single time we've come here!
This one is Auguste Renoir's Bal du Moulin de la Galette (1876). It's of an outdoor dancehall scene up at Montmartre (where Sacre Coeur is).
This is the Rehearsal of a Ballet on Stage by Edgar Degas. This is so light and airy even though the colors are a bit dark. You can almost see the girls twirling.
This is The Floor Scrapers by Gustave Caillebotte. I think this one is my favorite! It is so beautiful, and the shadows and light are so realistic. It's just gorgeous!
We decided to have an early dinner at the Orsay Restaurant, and it was the perfect light meal on a hot day. We both had the cheese plate, which came with a little salad and the iced green tea with orange. Let me just tell you that European restaurants don't really use ice very much. I think two tiny ice cubes are the most I've ever had in a cold drink over here, so this was fantastic to get a whole glass of ice cubes and iced tea (and they don't really do iced tea very much in Europe either). It was perfect on a hot day!
After the museum, we walked down to the river and hopped on our river cruise and enjoyed the views from the Seine for the next hour and a half. I didn't get a lot of pictures because it was crowded, but these are a few from when we walked down by the river yesterday.
After the river cruise was over we headed the long way back to our hotel so we could stop at a Starbucks for some ICED coffee! That's right, Starbucks has invaded Europe, and sometimes I'm so glad for that! The cafes here just don't do iced coffee drinks, and we were really craving one since it has been so hot the last two days. So I got a frappucino and Tammy got a citrus refresher! They were the perfect treat to end a wonderful and warm day.
TGIS!!! Thank goodness it's Starbucks!!!!!!
Tomorrow is the very last day of our trip, and we have a special event reserved for tomorrow night! Tune in Monday to see the blog post about it. I don't think I'll get anything posted tomorrow.
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