The Christmas holidays flew by as expected. I settled back in quite easily, the weirdest thing was hearing English all around me, and speaking to cashiers and train conductors etc. in English. Most of the break was spent catching up with friends and family, highlights being: our grandparents coming for Christmas, going back to Egham, New Year with family friends, and seeing the RSC production of Richard II starring David Tennant (which was amazing).
During winter there are very few London-Tours flights so I had to get the eurostar home and back which is a bit of a hassle. But since I was already paying the travel costs between Tours and Paris I decided to stay a night at the hostel from our last trip on my way back here. The day I travelled I didn't see much as I spent most of it freaking out over forgetting my French PIN and queuing up to cancel/exchange the train ticket I'd booked with that card (I suppose it's all experience!), but the next day was great. I got up fairly early and left my bags in the hostel lockers and then headed to the Musée D'Orsay, where the queues were much shorter than last time. I'm so glad I went there, the collections were incredible and because of the time of year it wasn't too busy so you could get a good look at everything you wanted to see, even the famous Van Goghs and Monets. I also loved the Art Nouveau furniture collection which was on two floors, one for Central Europe, Northern Europe, and Scandinavia and one for Austria, Great Britian, and the United States.
Once I'd finished at the Musée D'Orsay I took a not very direct route to Musée du Quai Branley so I could walk through some of the centre and have lunch in the park by the Eiffel Tower. Musée du Quai Branley is a relatively new museum of non-western art, set in an enormous modern building. It was really interesting, particularly having come directly from the Musée d'Orsay where the art was very different. There was also a temporary exhibition called 'Nocturnes de Colombie: images contemporaines' which was powerful although a little creepy as there didn't seem to be anyone else on the entire floor for most of the time that I was looking round.
In the evening I went straight to drinks with some Erasmus friends which was a nice way to return although it was an exhausting day!
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| Van Gogh- Portrait de l'artiste |
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| Van Gogh- La nuit étoilée |
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| Monet- Londres, le Parlement; Trouée de soleil dans le brouillard |
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| Monet- Coquelicots |
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| Monet- Gare Saint-Lazare |
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| Edouard Manet- L'évasion de Rochefort |
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| Gustave Guillaumet- Le désert |
I couldn't find any good pictures for the Art Nouveau displays but if you're interested here are links to the website, which has a couple of slideshows of them:
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