The morning after our food event at Les Papilles was too pretty to stay inside for long. The parentals and I walked up Roosevelt (aka My Paris Memorial Drive) to the Champs Elysees (about a 5 minute stroll) and hung a louie toward the Place de la Concorde and the Tuilleries Gardens. Behind us, the sun shone on the Arc de Triomphe, and just ahead stood the Obelisque of the Place de la Concorde. I, personally, am not a fan of said obelisque, but it’s a major improvement on the guillotine that stood in its place after the French Revolution. Between 1793 and 1795 more than 1300 people lost their heads there, including Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette. (Don’t tell Rick the French executed more people in two years than Texas does. ) So go on, Luxor, bring on the Obelisque! Here is the view once we crossed the crazy traffic circle at the base of the Tuilleries.
After our walk, we were happy to grab a gorgeous green chair at the pond and set a spell in the sun.
Ahhhhh.
love the color of these chairs
Refreshed, we pushed on to Musee de l’Orangerie, a small but great museum in the Tuilleries best known for Monet’s huge panels of water lillies on display in a special wing there. We loved the museum, and were particularly blown away by an amazing, hour-long documentary shown in the audio-visual room on Monet , his water lillies, and how they ended up at the l’Orangerie. Don’t miss it if you ever happen to go there. Oh- one more tip if you are planning visit to the museum- do NOT lay your jacket on the inspection table with your purse. You MUST wear it as you walk through the metal detector, lest you receive the Parisian “pppfffffttttt” and accompanying look of disdain. Don’t ask me how I know this.
I am going to attempt to insert a 30 second video I took in one of the water lilly rooms. If this post doesn’t publish until 2012, you will know why. Sorry about all the heads in the way. I made a public announcement asking everyone to please leave the room so I could take a video, but I guess they didn’t understand English.
After our bout of culture, we headed back out into the gorgeous day, took in a few more sights, and then headed back home.
I love this picture because you can see so much, including the Arc at the end of the Champs.
Dahlias, darling!
Since the naughty bits of the last post were so popular, I think I’ll end this one the same way. Don’t get used to it, though. I have to keep my PG rating on this thing in order to keep all my sponsors and such.
serious mugging outside l'Orangerie
neked sunbathing at the Tuilleries???
Pretty good stuff, right? Stick with me, friends- you never know what scandalous tid-bits I’ll come up with. Sex sells, baby.
Mais Oui Paris 
The Musee de l’Orangerie is my fave! We stumbled upon it on Easter Sunday morning after waiting 30 mins in the freezing cold for the Louvre to open and then me finally reading the sign that said, “Le Louvre est ferme!” THen I had to break it to Randy that it was closed but we found a restaurant to eat breakfast and I bought one of the little Paris weekly mags and read it until I found the Musee. Turned out to be an amazing day!
You’re really getting good at the videography!!
Missed that museum while on the Paris tour. Looks amazing. But it’s always important to save something for next time.
Have you found the
Louboutin shop? Very tiny, not too far from the Louvre. My girls did but it was closed.
Save that one for Martha?
Or NOT.