J'aime Paris et Musee de l'Orangerie

For our first full day, we went to the Musee de l'Orangerie to see Monet's Water Lillies.  It is called Orangerie because it was built in 1852 to house an orange grove.

Monet's large paintings of water lillies cover two rooms.  You are not supposed to be talking a lot and you cannot take photos, but I think that's reasonable!  It is something you really need to see in person.  The rooms are long and kind of oval-shaped, with a flat bench in the middle so you can sit and look at the paintings that circle the room for a very long time.  You can see so much if you just take the time to sit still and look at the paintings.  He truly had a vision when it came to putting these together.

This is a picture of one of the rooms from the brochure.  He worked on these from 1914 until his death in  1926.  The display and shape of the rooms was envisioned by Monet as he worked to create a garden that would bring peace and tranquility to all who visit.  It was beautiful.  That alone was worth a trip to Paris.

We took a lot of photos along the way.  Essentially we walked along the street to the Louvre and then walked through the Jardin des Tuileries to get to the Musee de l'Orangerie.

This was a statue in front of a protestant church and across from the Louvre.  It is Admiral Gaspard de Coligny (1519-1572) leader of the Huguenots (Protestants) during the first ten years of religious wars in France. To his right sits religion and to his left sits the Fatherland.  The statue was sculpted in 1889.  We found that interesting.

Above is the Arc de Triomphe du Carrousel, which was built between 1806-1808 and it leads to Le Jardin des Tuileries.  The next several photos are pictures we took walking through the garden.  It stretches along to the Carousel and to the Place de la Concorde, where the Avenue de Champs-Elysees begins and stretches to the Arc de Triomphe de L'Etoile.  There are a great many statues and things, many created so long ago that it is astounding they still stand here today!

This is Julius Ceasar.

This is a handsome frenchman with the carousel in the distance...

We HAVE to come back - just imagine how this would look in Spring and Summer!

As you walk through the garden, you can go to various museums on either side.  Way at the end is the Musee de l'Orangerie.  Just beyond that museum is the Place de la Concorde, where streets and traffic become an issue!  I will say that you must be very careful about crossing streets.  My experience was that people don't like to slow down, and would just as soon nick your shin rather than let you cross if you happen to be crossing against the light.  Very different from Ireland!

I love seeing the French flag flying over the building!

The Obelisk was given to France by the Egyptian Government in 1829.  It arrived in Paris in 1833, and was  placed on this spot on October 25, 1836.  It is over 3000  years old!  Also of interest in this photo is the painted  building you can see.  That is plywood and the building is under construction and they painted it to look like the building under construction.  Ha!

These graphics show how the Obelisk was put into place.

This square is also where King Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette were beheaded by guillotine in 1793.  At that time it was known as Place de la Revolution.  It was renamed  many times but now is known as Place de la Concorde.