I must say that with winter and cold weather, my walking takes me quite a lot to museums and exhibitions since I’m lucky enough to live in a city that provides quite a lot of those.
Now, is it that I’ve seen too many of those, lately? Or is it that I was in a bad exhibition mood on that day?
I had decided to walk to Musée Marmottan, 2,6kms according to my iPhone map, except for the fact that I managed to get lost and probably walk longer

View from Pont de Grenelle

It was really freezing cold that day and my steps took me across Pont de Grenelle to the Right Bank of the Seine where Musée Marmottan is.

Musée Marmottan now houses mostly Claude Monet‘s paintings and has a special exhibition at the moment called Monet, l’œil impressionniste. A lot in the exhibition focuses on medical details about Monet’s eyes and how it influenced his art.
Well, I didn’t enjoy it, probably because I’m not all that interested in medical details, or even in Monet, I guess.
I don’t think I had ever seen that many Monet paintings gathered in a same place and am ashamed to admit he is not my favourite painter.
Probably because I am an ignoramus and don’t understand much about painting and art and also because I am more interested in the drawing and the composition than the colours?
Well, I really don’t know but it just didn’t appreciate the place the way some of my friends had.
On the way back, it was even more freezing, but this is what I saw on either side of the bridge

The Eiffel Tower, seen from Pont de Beaugrenelle

What I like about rivers is that whenever you cross them, even if the view is always the same, the light never is!

Rosy clouds mirrored in Front de Seine building

About the top photo, if you are wondering what that bateau-mouche is doing astride the river, it was taking a U-turn, the way those boats do it.

Today, I met Monceau, a flickr friend and we went to Cimetière du Père Lachaise.
It was our second cemetery walk together. The last time was back in November 2007 and we had gone to Cimetière du Montparnasse.
We met outside the cemetery and chatted while walking around and taking photos.
I told her about the hundreds of photos sitting on my hard disk, unprocessed and waiting for me to find time to have a serious look at. I mentioned walking and ElderExercise and she asked me if I had a pedometer.
I said that of course I did and we both got our pedometers out and guess what?

We have identical pedometers!

I have been to Père Lachaise many a time. I never really look for specific graves and just go wherever my steps take me, except of course when going with Leo and Elly Reynolds who always have specific goals. So I knew that Marcel Proust‘s grave was there but I had no idea where.
Well today we came across it.

With Proust’s famed madeleine on it

We actually walked by the grave as two men, holding a bag of madeleines, and enjoying one passed us. I didn’t see them put the madeleine on the stone, but there it was, ready to be photographed.
We spent three or four hours there and enjoyed gorgeous sunshine. So much so that now and then we complained that the sun was preventing us from taking adequate photos, because of unwanted shadows.
There’s no pleasing some people.

Sleeping lady

We will, no doubt take another walk together. I haven’t been to Cimetière Montmartre in a long time. So when I go, I’ll give Monceau a call.

May 1st, – le 1er mai– , is a bank holiday in France –un jour férié–, and traditionally, people offer their family, friends or relatives a sprig of lily of the valley for good luck.
Although the weather was uncertain that day, I went for a walk and took a few photos.

Lily of the valley – muguet

Shops are closed

And on that day, anyone and everyone is allowed to sell lily of the valley on the street.

Selling lily of the valley

Either she just got her sprig, or they are going to offer it to some friends or relatives.

Just got hers!

And here’s some of mine

A visit to Musée Jacquemart-André is always a treat.

A treat because it’s such a beautiful museum, located Boulevard Haussmann. It hosts incredible collections all gathered by patrons of the arts, Edouard André and his wife, Nélie Jacquemart, and a treat, because the museum restaurant offers scrumptious plates and tasty pastries in an incredible setting!

At the moment, it hosts paintings and drawings by Fragonard. I enjoyed the exhibition, although I must admit drawings and etchings are more difficult for me to appreciate than paintings.

Of course, no photographs are allowed in the rooms dedicated to Fragonard, but I took some photos on the way to the exhibition like this gorgeous Tiepolo fresco.

I had a salade au foie gras, decorated with grapes, raspberries, which did not only taste great but also looked wonderfully autumnal.

When we got out, as it was a lovely day, I walked back home, along avenue Montaigne, spotting old fashion designer plates on the pavement, like Jeanne Paquin’s

and walking past the Eiffel Tower to finally get home.

Quite a long enjoyable walk.

I know it’s much too early to be mentioning spring, but on a sunny day, when you see

People feeling that it’s warm enough to sit on a bench

Even tights in this shopwindow are so colourful that they’re just calling for spring!

and old ladies go out for a walk… (I actually missed the appropriate shot here. The car on the right was backing up and she stopped it with her cane! But my camera was too slow to catch it)

At last a nice and sunny day. Not really warm, but what do you expect in February. We haven’t even had real cold yet, but lots of grey, humid, foggy, boring days. A dull winter it is.
I went to Parc Montsouris, one of the parks in southern Paris. Still pretty wintery.

A nice park I had never really been to, with ducks and / or geese. I never quite know which is which!

Paths going up and down, a pool and statues.

And under a big tree, the first crocuses I’ve seen this year

All my photos of Parc Montsouris.

Of course, I had taken both my cameras with me and took gazillions of photos with my older camera, as it is better at night. I even started from home pretty early, as I wanted to shoot the lights at Galeries Lafayette and Place Vendôme. So I did, and also took quite a few photos inside the Opera House.
On my way home on the métro, I reviewed my photos and wanting to delete one blurry photo, I managed to erase all the photos I had taken on that day. I still don’t know how I ever did that, but I did. They have all disappeared forever.

I don’t like to give up though, and yesterday, as it wasn’t raining, I went back to the Galeries Lafayette area in the evening and shot photos inside and outside,

Then I walked along rue de la Paix to Place Vendôme. The whole area was just silvery and worth going back to.

At Galeries Nationales du Grand Palais, a great exhibition, Public Portraits, Private Portraits 1770-1830, that will also be shown in London from February 2007 to April 2007. No queue, or crowds yesterday, which made it very pleasant. Unfortunately, they won’t allow you to take photographs at Grand Palais, — not that I would take photos of paintings, but I would like to capture the atmosphere of the place and it’s just forbidden, which I find rather frustrating. And believe me, they’re watching you closely…

I was surprised by this very well-known portrait of Napoleon by Ingres, full of pomp and circumstances (I had only seen reproductions of); I found Napoleon looking a bit overwhelmed by all this decorum.

My favourite painting, was that of a black woman Portrait de femme noire by Madame Benoist. The black woman seems to have been a freed slave. It was painted a few years after the abolition of slavery.
Quite magnificent.
Madame Benoist learnt her art with Elisabeth Vigée-Lebrun

I had forgotten all about this charming child portrait of Manuel Osorio Manrique de Zuniga by Goya which is full of interesting details, like the cats, the magpie, the birdcage, which attract your eyes, but you’re always attracted back to the lovely face of the boy and the stunning red of his outfit.

When I got out, it was night and I walked up the Champs-Elysées to Place de l’Etoile, with Arc de Triomphe. When you look towards Place de la Concorde, at Christmas time they have this wheel. I like the way it looks at night, but a lot of Parisians hate it.

Alternately, you can download the file here Your browser must have Adobe flashplayer

1. The music is the intro to Eagles’ Hotel California, which can be downloaded here
2. I wrote about the museum here in French
   
3. The last two slides, were taken when I got out of the Museum
4. Set of Musée du Quai Branly photos here

I took a photo of this unusual sign this morning on a street next to a hospital and wondered if anyone would guess what’s on the other side of this keyhole. Of course, you can see blue skies and clouds just as I can, but what’s the sign for?

Well, it’s the logo of a funeral home. It gave me a good laugh. Even more so, when I saw that their shopwindow showed “the other bank“.
It set me wondering if France was the only country that had funeral companies next to hospitals, or if this was international.
I have always lived in the vicinity of a hospital and where I’m living now, there’s a hospice and of course, on the other side of the avenue there is a funeral home. Mourning families don’t have far to go, I guess.
Is it the same where you live?

Click to listen to this post in French

Nothing to do of course, with Shirl’s blog, The Other Side