Day 51: Musèe de l'Orangerie, Notre Dame and sad farewells

Shanny, Shazzy and Ken were already waiting for us at Café des Deux Moulins, otherwise known as Amèlie’s Café.

This was on my “Must do whilst in Paris” list, purely for the film connection.  I wasn’t fussed whether the food was good or not. However I thought it actually was quite nice food: filling up on a breakfast of croissants, bread, jam, juice and coffee.  The coffee wasn’t too bad either, and there was also a friendly dog visiting as well.

We then all made our way via the metro to Gare du Nord.  The metro is not really designed to deal with luggage, so it was good to find this out today with the Tuffen’s dealing only with carry-on type bags.  We won’t be using the metro tomorrow with our full sized bags, that’s for sure.
So the plan was to drop off the Tuffen's luggage at Gare du Nord and then spend the day in Paris.  This plan, however, came to a rather abruptly crashing halt when we were advised that there was no room left in the luggage storage. This was a bit of a shock. So, while we stood there wondering about options for a few minutes, thinking how we could deal with this, we were advised that some space had just become available for smaller bags.  Lucky!  Good thing we didn’t immediately wander off defeated.
Shaz, Shan and Ken got their luggage secured away as more and more people came down the escalator to be faced with the same problem.  Note for tomorrow, luggage fills up early.
Free now from baggage encumbrances, we metro’d to Concorde, then walked past the Egyptian obelisk, of which I’d seen so many of on these holidays, and went into Musèe de l’Orangerie.

Purpose built to showcase Claude Monet’s beautiful Water Lilies, this is a place in which to sit, contemplate and appreciate Monet’s artist, bordering on abstract, representation of his garden at Giverny.  If only 20,000 other people weren’t like-minded!  I would love to come here and just sit at a quiet time, if there was ever such a thing.  Maybe Paris in winter?  Regardless it is a very special and beautiful space.
Downstairs there is a quite vast collection of 20^th Century art, with Picassos, Matisses, Cèzannes, and Renoirs.  Photos were not permitted of the Water Lilies, and I assumed that they weren’t permitted in the other galleries as well, though nobody seemed to abide.  In fact I was wrong and photos were allowed, yet I took none, choosing to just look and enjoy.  But now looking back I struggle to remember so many of the hundreds of paintings that were on display.

The rest of the afternoon was relaxed and aimless, or semi aimless wandering through the Latin Quarter, with a galette lunch at Crêperie Cluny.

Oi, you don't drink beer!  That's my beer!!

Choosing from the menu without really understanding what I was asking for, I ended up with a crêpe with a hotdog inside.  It wasn’t quite as bad as it sounded.
At the table behind us, our waitress managed to coax a female a cappella group, resplendent in their floral dresses, to give the restaurant an impromptu rendition of the Chattanooga Choo Choo.

Paris, Je t’aime.

Dessert was a flaming Grand Marnier crêpe, then a wander through the Latin Quarter, then more dessert of macarons, then more wandering, then more dessert of glacè.

Then still more wandering, which brought us to Notre Dame.

Notre Dame is a very memorable and beautiful cathedral.  From the statue of the white walkers outside, or was it Charlemagne?  to the stunningly delicate and intricate carvings around the arches and the towers, not to mention the many gorgeous statues.

Inside was just as beautiful, and lovely and cool too as an added bonus.  From the spectacular stained glass roses, carvings, stained glass windows, to many lovely statues, including the Statue of La Pieta’ on the altar.

Does that hurt if I touch it here?

Unfortunately, this beauty was marred somewhat by one very ugly person. This is a church, a place of worship for the faithful, a place of God for those who believe as such, and certainly without question a place of quiet reflection and appreciation of art and the human spirit. This arsehole, I can think of no term less blunt, was trying to take a photo of the Statue of La Peita.  Now taking a photo is OK, it was actually allowed.  However the use of tripods was forbidden, and this guy had a tripod set up blocking half the walkway.  He also set this up clearly right in front of both myself and another person who were standing back trying to take a photo of the statue.  Myself and this other guy were quietly and patiently waiting for a clergy member waking down the corridor towards the statue, to finish his errand and move out of camera shot.  The arsehole, who whilst we were waiting to get our photo, set up right in front of us, had little patience and said quite loudly to his friend and to all around, “Kill him, kill him dead.”  I did not feel in any way that he was joking. I wanted very badly to tell him exactly what I thought, but I had a pretty strong feeling he would have pulled a hunting knife out and spilled my intestines across the stone floor.

I managed to get my photo regardless, without any threats of violence or murder in a house of God.
We continued our afternoon with more walks through lovely Paris, and the occasional stop at a road side café for nice ice cold beer.

We'd used the maps ourselves, our fair share

Heartless woman flaunts skin from flayed zebra 

Too soon the time we had been dreading arrived, and we had to make our way down into the metro where we said our heartfelt goodbyes, shed tears, hugged and parted ways toward our separate train platforms.  After our goodbyes, we made our way along the underground passages, past an awesome Russian band, and down onto the platform only to see Shanny, Shaz and Ken sitting on the other side of the tracks straight across from us.  Nooooo!!!!  How to drag out a sad farewell!!!!  Their train arrived first, and we watched and waved as it carried them off and away.

The rest of the day’s photos are here.