Musee Rodin & Hotel des Invalides

Another lovely day in Paris!  We started off with a quick kid tour of the Musee d'Orsay.  Since attention spans are short, it was good that I had previewed the museum a few days ago, so I could lead a quick tour of the highlights.  (Nik did the same thing yesterday with the Louvre.)   Some of my favorites that the kids also liked were the Nouveau Arts (~1900) carved wood dining room interior, the model of the Paris Opera and surrounding neighborhood that is viewed from above as if we were giants flying over, and the Van Goghs.  Henry had done some Van Gogh-inspired sunflower painting in art class this last year, so he especially enjoyed seeing these.  

Nik says: I was hoping to see a portrait of Van Gogh with foxglove.  He painted several pictures of himself with this plant and it has been suggested that he took it on recommendation from his doctor.  It's known to cause colorful hallucinations and aura when taken in overdose and may have contributed to the style of his work.  Unfortunately, we did not find any foxglove in his paintings, and there were no photos allowed in this museum.

N says:  I was dying to check out one of the ubiquitous pharmacies and today I got my fix.  Two interesting discoveries.  One is that you can buy tylenol with codeine over the counter.  (We didn't.)  The second discovery, which I thought was absolutely hilarious, is pictured above.  On the right is paracetamol, which is the European name for acetaminophen or Tylenol.  But, on the left is Mucomyst.  In France, it is apparently used as an expectorant for a cough.  In the US, I'm pretty sure it has just one FDA-approved indication:  in hospitals for tylenol overdose!!  This is awesome.

This afternoon, we visited the Rodin Museum, which Nik and I had not seen before.  It's in a grand hotel (mansion) that Rodin rented and lived in.  The house and garden are filled with his sculptures, and the collection also includes some paintings by his friends (Monet, Van Gogh, Renoir) and letters, including some with Monet.  They were both born in 1840, and it sounds like they got on well.

The Thinker... (what is he thinking about?)

The Kiss... (perhaps that was it.)

Nik says:  Many of the sculptures were of beautiful, intertwined lovers or realistic representations of friends or acquaintances.  There were two oddities I saw, and within a minute of each other.  One is the sculpture above which was entitled something like "The hand rising from the tomb".  Bizarre and an outlier from the rest.  The second was a man visiting the museum.  He had impressively large scars on his head suggesting brain surgery, clearly was blind and was being led around by a companion.  I saw him actively grasping and studying one of the bronze sculptures with his hands.  As touching any piece in the museum is strictly prohibited, a nearby young female guard appeared both terrified but conflicted.  In the few seconds before I walked away, she didn't intervene.  I probably wouldn't have either.  Makes sense to me that sculpture is a preferred medium for the blind.

Rodin's view of his gardens.  While Nik and I took turns in the museum, the kids spent an hour and a half in the garden playing (nicely) with sticks and stones, doing a bit of drawing and taking photos of each other.  I am not sure that they laid eyes on a single sculpture, and if you ask them, they will probably have no clue who Rodin was.  Oh well...

Next door to the Rodin Museum is the Hotel des Invalides, built by Louis XIV to house and care for retired and wounded soldiers.  This part was built as a royal chapel for Louis; the photo does not show the rest of the expansive buildings that included the hospital.  Part of this complex is still a hospital in fact.  Napoleon's tomb is grandly (putting it kindly) displayed here under the dome.  According to our guide book, the dome was re-gilded in 1989, which took 26 pounds of gold.

Inside the dome (once chapel, now necropolis).  It is quite breathtaking.

Tomorrow is Henry's 8th birthday, and we learned that his grandpa had sent him a package that could not be delivered to our apartment.  We had no clue which post office to go to in order to pick up the package.  Well, on our walk back from Invalides to our apartment, we passed this post office, and Nik decided to see if they could tell us where Henry's package was.  As you can tell, we met with success, and the package was here.  Henry has great willpower and it waiting until tomorrow to open it.  

We have decided that to celebrate his birthday tomorrow we will visit the Boi de Vincennes, on the outskirts of Paris, at the end of a Metro line.  Sounds like it has it all: chateau, garden, aquarium,  adventure playground, even the zoo (which we think is closed at the moment).  In one of her extremely sweet sister moments, Madeleine has already decorated our apartment with ribbons and a sign for Henry for when he wakes up.

- E