Thursday's adventures

Have arrived back from a lovely day out- went to the Q de Orsay again to see the Vollard exhibition- he was an astute art dealer who bought and exhibited many impressionists in their early yrs and also recognised Picasso early.Cezanne, VanGogh, Renoir, Degas,Gauguin,Matisse were all represnted along with lesser known artists ( at least by me)Vollard wrote monographs on their work and publicised them well in the US and OS-all in his own and their interest of course. Paintings came from all over the world for this show US, London,Russia as well s some from the Paris collection. One from Russia a lovely Cezanne flower painting looked as tho someone had scratched the letter R over it defacing it slightly?restored after terrible damage. Not too big for D to cope with and not too crowded, so a success!
Walked along the Seine looking at the most amazing antiquities shops- furniture, fossils and even a stuffed platypus and stuffed heads!No needto go to museums to see such things.
Found our good lunch place of the left bank-had a salad and fish and D had the smoked salmon and steak- we both had the Normandy dessert-chesnut puree, icecream and calvados.Very good value and seems to have non touristy food.(32e incl 2 Heinekens)Saw a collision between an unwary pedestrian and lady on pushbike on a crossing-bike riders here tend to ignore traffic lights as they do in Oz
Metroed to the Marmotten to see the Monets there- a flash area of Paris with lovely parks and general affluent air. A rich collector had gathered all manner of beautiful things in his lovely house- illuminated manuscripts, alterpieces,sculpture along with paintings of Monet he had bought or people donated to the museum. Monets son had left his pallette to it also along with family memorobilia and paintings.Many pictures done at Giverney were there so it was good to see the show after visiting the garden.A Berthe Moriset show on too as a bonus.
Walking back to the metro there were bike riders doing a London Paris ride-including a lady of 70+ -good on her- leading the pack of all ages,shapes and sizes.Good humoured banter as they tangled with pedestrians,cars and other bikes. Traffic seems less than we remember -all small cars and motor and pushbikes with no helmets.Home to coffee-no restaurant tonight need a small plain meal after last night's effort!Booked in for tomorrow though at Cheri Bibi.