Day 323: Paris, Day 13: Le Musee d'Orsay, part 2

Today we decided to go to the Musee d'Orsay and check out some of the things we had missed before. It's such a huge museum and worth a 2nd trip. So we went, even though the weather report predicted a 97 degree day. We took the Metro Line 1 to Tuilerries and walked to the museum. Unlike last time, this time we noticed two huge lines. We looked at the biggest one and then asked one woman in charge, "Is this the end of the line?" Another person mentioned that she had a Paris Museum Paris, and the woman in charge indicate that Museum Pass folks were to go to another, shorter line. Phew! However, the shorter line was still pretty long, at it took at least 20 minutes to go through the security line in the hot sun. We hydrated constantly, wiped sweat off ourselves, and tried not to move too much.

Eventually, we made it in the air-conditioned museum. We stayed mainly on the main floor (floor 0) and then near the end made our way up to look at some French sculptures.  Here's some of what we saw:

• Daumier, Celebrites de Juste Milieu (Celebrities of the Happy Medium)--a series of satirical statues
• Millet, Les Glaneuses (The Gleaners)--he had many paintings of peasant women
• Gerome, Deux Paysannes Italiennes et Un Enfant
• Sellier, Portrait de Napolitiane
• Rousseau, Une Avenue, Foret de I'sle-Adam
• Bonheur, Labourage Niverais (cows)
• Jacque, Moutons au Paturage
• Breton, Le Rappel des Glaneuses
• Manet, Olympia
• Courbet, including L'Atelier du Peintre (which we had a heck of a time finding...it wasn't where Rick Steves said it would be....)
• Cabanel, Thamar
• Nouy, Ramses dans son Harem
• Motte, La Fiancee de Belus
• Cabanel, Mort de Francesca de Rimini et de Paolo Malatesta
• Glaize, Les Femmes Gauloises
• Chenavard, Divina Tragedia ("the destruction of the Greek Pantheon," Kerry said)
• Baader, Le Remords
• Lehoux, Saint Laurent
• Bazille, Reunion de Famille
• Tissot, Jeune Femme en Veste Rouge
• Models of Paris and the Paris Opera House
• Many works by Toulouse-Lautrec (I learned he died at age 36 of syphillis...)
• Beraud, Une Soiree
• Many sculptures from Rodin, including another manifestation of his Gates of Hell
• Sculpture by Gerome, Tangara

By the end of the tour around the museum, I was hurting, exhausted, and dehydrated. My hip hurt, my ankle hurt, my back hurt, and I was sweating....with no water. They began to usher us like cows out of the museum around 5:45. The moment we got out, there was a man selling bottles of water for 1 euro each. We bought two bottles, and I immediately chugged 1/2 of one right away, so Kerry had to go buy another.

I was just hurting, hurting, hurting, so I hobbled home via the Subway....we took the Concorde station back. We stopped at a bagel placewe both like that's been serving us good desserts. I got a bagel with salmon and cream cheese; Kerry got one with pastrami. I also got curry cole slaw; Kerry got chips. It was a good (relatively cheap) dinner for Paris: about 25 euros.

Right now I'm just trying to relax. We plan to do laundry and then go to Le Louvre late tomorrow.