Category: 2015

Travels with Dick and KarenParisPart 11: Inside Musée du Quai Branly The Quai Branley is France’s leading indigenous and primitive arts museum. As a whole it is very dimly lit so many of our photos were blurry (light fades paint etc. so they want to use as little as possible). The entryway’s spiral ramp (the…

Travels with Dick and KarenParisPart 10: Inside Musée National des Arts Asiatiques Guimet The name says it all. Established in 1879 by Émile Étienne Guimet as a private collection in Lyon, then transferred to Paris in 1885. In 1927 it was connected with the state Museum system.Guimet Although it started focused primarily on Asian (and…

Travels with Dick and KarenParisPart 9: Inside Musée d’ Orsay The Orsay takes over where the Louvre leaves off: 1848 and goes through 1914.It’s housed in an abandoned railway station. The monumental space easily handles strong art. This particular piece, Gérôme Executing The Gladiators, Monument to Gérôme, started as a painting by Jean-Léon Gérôme. Then…

> Travels with Dick and KarenParisPart 8: Inside Musée des Arts Décoratifs This museum is located in 5 floors of the far northwest corner of the Richelieu wing of the Louvre, but is separate and has its own street entrance. We went primarily for this exhibit which presented (mostly French) glass from the 17th and…

Travels with Dick and KarenParis Part 7:Inside Musée du Louvre (this is twice as long as any of the other sections so settle in with a croissant and espresso to properly explore) The Louvre covers European and Mid-eastern antiquities and European art up to “1848” to quote the brochure. It also has a well presented…

Travels with Dick and KarenParisPart 5Versailles Many of the Metro stations are connected underground to (nearly) co-located RER (train) stations. “St-Michel – Notre Dame”(on the Seine’s Left Bank, right next to Notre Dame) was one such, giving us convenient connections to Versailles (line C) and Charles de Gaulle airport (line B). We got to the…

Travels with Dick and KarenParisPart 5Boise Vincennes& Boise Boulogne(dark green path on lower right, dark green labeled Boise on center left) Remember the Bastille from the previous set? We’re going to start there The space under an abandoned elevated rail line has been turned into small shops of artisans This bookshelf in a woodworkers studio…

Travels with Dick and KarenParisPart 4South looping to NE (the Light Green Line path) paris Starting just south of Notre Dame, across the Seine via Pont St Michel, is Place St. Michel. with its monumental fountain of Archangel Michael wrestling with the devil. The ancillary lion-headed dragons added that Je ne sais quoi. It is…

Travels with Dick and KarenParis 2015Part 3North Loop (the red line on this map) About 4 blocks up the street from the Seine, in the Marais area, is Place des Vosges, a square of nearly symmetrical houses and very geometric hedges. Once only the –very– wealthy lived here. Now you probably just have to be…

Travels with Dick and KarenParis: Part 2Along the Seine (the usual Paris, blue line on the map) Our visits inside the larger museums are on separate pages with branch links from this one (close that window to get back to this page). You can either branch off during this tour to see their collections or…