🇫🇷 The Great France Art Tour of 2017

It was the longest day in Paris, starting with a grand tour, followed by Monet’s Sunrise and so much more. What a joy it is to travel with an agreeable and flexible companion. That was my thought as Deb and I, now back at the Hotel Bercy, planned the remains of the day. It was a great plan! A magnificent plan! We were in Paris. How could it be anything less than a wonderful and successful plan?

She had no great interest in the Louvre. Nor did I. A decade before, in my fifties, I had stumbled there upon the enormous and magnificent “Raft of the Medusa” by Théodore Géricault. I stood speechless, with tears embarrassingly welling in my eyes, a reaction inspired partly by the monumental size of the work, but more from its significance as a time portal, for I had stood at the same place, in the Louvre, forty years before that. In 1972, I had been overcome by waves of emotions: awe at the work, wonder at my fortune in being there seeing it, the loneliness of an adolescent far from home and family for the first time, experiencing something that ought to be, but due to circumstances, and the formidable magnificence of the art, could never be clearly communicated, much less shared, an experience condemned to always remain deeply and intensely personal. Thrust backward, then suddenly, flashing forward in time, instead of seeing more of what I wanted at the Louvre and processing that adolescent visit, instead, I spent way too much of that day dragged by an acquaintance through the endless sandstone monotony of Egyptian and Middle-Eastern architecture, of which I had in comparison to the Impressionists, no interest whatsoever.

This time, I was in no hurry to enter the Louvre. If I were to pass through a time portal it would be at my choosing, and with opportunity to process the odyssey. Musée D’Orsay, was a possibility, although on yet another Paris trip, a redeeming one, alone, and only a few years before, I had made a thorough survey and with great satisfaction sought and found the Van Goghs, and so, even Orsay I could forego for something previously unseen, perhaps the gardens of Giverny? Or Musée Marmottan Monet?

An uneventful 45 minute ride from Bercy discharged us from the train at the La Muette Metro station. We walked through a few typical urban Paris streets, then with the assistance of our paper tour map and Google Maps—for neither by itself seems sufficient until you can get them both to agree—we passed thru the Jardin Du Ranelagh—on the map, a small isolated green blotch before all the grey and white of Paris is surrounded on the western flank by the very green Bois de Boulogne – so very much green!

What is the “B-d-B”?? I don’t know. Don’t think I have ever been! It incorporates the Hippodrome de Autreil – which appears to be a horse track. Was this where Hemingway so smugly bet on horses, bragging about his successes, while living in supposed poverty on Hadley’s trust fund? And there on the map(s) in bold print is the A13, the route to the Chateau de Versailles. Is that the same as the Palace of Versailles? But I digress…

The Jardin was walkable in the overcast and humid late morning, slightly green, but suffering the trampled haggard look of excess foot traffic as only a city park can. Gravel walkways lined with green wooden-slatted benches. A few couples with long black umbrellas, more children with mothers nearby and nannies rolling the small ones in blue prams, and us stopping at the intersections of every odd-angled street, re-checking our orientation and looking for signs to the Musée.

It began to rain softly before we arrived at the steps to Marmottan, an unimposing old building of brick and faded white trim.

The Bois de Boulogne, as research has now revealed, is the second largest public park in Paris – bordering the west side of the 16^th Arrondissement and containing not one, but two horse tracks. And yes, the Chateau de Versailles is in fact the one and same “Palace of Versailles” to us Americans. No, like the Louvre before it, and to the dismay and puzzlement of some, the Chateau de Versailles was rapidly discarded as a destination for “The Great Art Tour” – we had no interest. Been there, stood in line for hours, inside and out, and agreed with myself to never return. Never. Lavish, extravagant furnishings and homes of the royals and super-wealthy, past or present, do not do much for me, nor warrant a second visit.

While we sidetrack the narrative with our decisions-not-to-see, a more difficult decision was the potential visit to Monet’s Giverny. The garden documented in books and film, and memorialized in uncountable blurry-until-viewed-from-the-proper-distance “Water Lilies” painted by the aged and near-blind Monsieur Claude. Definitely a place worthy of an Art Pilgrimage, but from our perspective requiring a Full Day traveling and touring outside of Paris with the strong potential for RAIN. We chose to hang closer to the City of Lights.

An excellent choice as it turns out. The next morning we learned that our traveling nemesis “Donald” and his long-suffering wife, hired a car with the aid of our excellent and very French guide, Christine, and we would likely have spent the day with them. From their anguished reports, it was a day mostly memorable for “Impressions of Rain and Mud” as opposed to Water Lilies.

What did we choose? As previously disclosed, a visit to Musée Marmottan Monet, which by chance included a selection of Sisley and Pissarro (among others) in addition to our target of “Impression: Sunrise”. And from there? Well, how about Montmartre? And the Latin Quarter? The Seine. And I have yet to get to the near disaster on the late night Metro.

Oh there is so much more. So much more. Such a long day. The longest day in Paris, with more to come.

…to be continued.

— Christo