Surely I have no cellulite left in my legs after all the walking I have done around Paris. Today we decided to visit the Musee d’Orsay and I convinced Gary that it was within easy walking of our hotel – just across the river from the Louvre actually. We walked, walked and walked and ended up at the Grand Palais on the Champes Elysees. This certainly wasn’t right – where was the d’Orsay. Get out the Paris Book and have a look and realize that I had made a mistake and taken a wrong turn across the river and we were well past our destination. I once again convinced Gary to catch a bus back. With the help of a lovely Parisian lady and the bus driver we were dropped off at the back of the museum. After a cup of coffee we joined the long line of fellow tourists.

The museum is inside the old Paris-Orleans railway station that fell into disrepair but was saved by President Pompadour in the 1970s to house a collection of France’s art treasures. The paintings and sculptures that were of particular interest to us were on the 5th floor and we were not disappointed. Wonderful examples of works by Cezanne, Degas, Manet, Matisse, Monet, Pissarro, Renoir, Toulouse-Lautrec, Van Gough, Whistler to name but a few. I had never seen bronzes by Degas and they just were amazingly beautiful. What a talent in one person. There were so many beautiful paintings and it was difficult to pick a favourite.

Our plans to also visit the Musee de l’Orangerie and see more works of Monet on this day were not to be realized as we left the d’Orsay at 5.30 pm. We walked slowly back to the Latin Quarter and decided to take a different way back. How fortunate as we found an area of St Germain that we hadn’t known about. Here were all the retail art galleries of the area. The shops contained beautiful and very interesting works. What a fabulous area of Paris this is. Every street and lane has something interesting to see. Tomorrow is another adventure.