Inevitably, we got a rainy day.  The morning was dry, so we went across the Seine, wandering past Notre Dame, along the back streets in the general direction of Bon Marche department store. VWe had lunch in a cafe next to the Poilane bakery in rue de cherche midi, and after a bit of a wander in Bon Marche, we headed home via the St James clothing store near the Madeline church (by now it was teeming down).

So on a wet afternoon I played with my camera with what I could see…

The crowds were much bigger than I remembered.

   
 But inside is still impressive…and the views from the cafe terrace (unfortunately closed off) across the river were great.

   
    
 And I did take some photos too…

   
    
 Taking a break in the cafe

  
On a bad day could have been Robin Hoods Bay!

I’ve visited the Musee d’Orsay twice before – both times with Caroline – and enjoyed both visits.  As well as the blockbuster impressionist galleries, I remembered the gallery space as impressive ( it’s in an old railway station).

So we set off across Paris one not so fine morning thinking we’d queue for a bit, but it should all be fine.  We’ve never bothered with the museum pass – we’d never get value – so queuing is the price we pay.  Last time we waited less than half an hour to get into the Lourve so we figured this would be similar.

Unfortunately not.  The queue for people with museum passes stretched for a block from the outside of the museum.  We probably queued all up (there was a queue to get to the start of the official queue) for around  an hour.  Luckily the rain that threatened didn’t arrive.

Once we were inside it was really busy – people everywhere.  We headed for a temporary exhibition on the history of protitution in Paris as represented in art.  It was really well curated – and combined photography, painting, sculpture and even furniture (!).  But it was also pretty depressing in terms of the subject matter.  

After that, we headed upstairs for lunch and the the Impressionist galleries.  It was lovely to see the less well known Monets, but also paintings by Pissaro and Sisley.  The d’Orsay has apparently only recently relaxed its ‘no photos’ policy and there were people taking photos everywhere – including selfies in front of paintings!  Aaarrgghhh😠

After that we headed downstairs to the Van Gough and Cezane paintings.  Even the crush in the galleries can’t take away from how different these look for real as opposed to reproductions.

By then we were close to done, but did visit the furniture galleries, which have some stunning art nouveau furniture and glass – and were much less crowded.  And after, it was definitely time for on of these🍷!

Photos to come…

Just cleaning up the apartment in preparation for transferring to the hotel for our last night.

Wifi is terrible there so no posting😞

Sunny day here so after that…not sure yet!

It’s nearly time to go home and we’ve written no posts from Paris.  We’ve relished having the space of an apartment, a washing machine and being able to self cater.  

We’ve eaten some great food courtesy of Ute, with whom we did a food walk and whose restaurant booking service we utilised.  And we’ve had some lovely cheeses, quiches, and other supplies courtesy of providers she showed us.  

So there will be follow-up posts and photos…but for now, this is from our short stroll on the Rue des Rosiers tonight – a sugar and lemon crepe for desert after cheese, bread, wine and fruit in the apartment😀

We arrived in Colmar from Riquewihr around 2ish and set off for a walk into the old part of town.  We managed to take in part of the Musee Unterlinden housed in an ex-Dominican church showing massive pieces of medieval church art (more interesting than it sounds), the Eglise St Martin, Little Venice, the old customs house and other random pretty streets in the old town.

So here is what it looked like!

   
 Restoration of a picture in the Musee, and it’s major masterpiece, the Madonna of the rose garden.

Riquewihr has the biggest Christmas shop we’d ever seen.  Move over Liberty – this shop was over three levels, with baubles both traditional and more modern, in glass, wood, ceramic and metal.

Looked like it was doing a roaring trade too!

There is no where in Australia or NZ that we’ve been that compares to Riquewihr, with its mix of high end food, tourists bussing in from Germany, tacky stork souvenirs, and major wine producers right in the middle of the village.

Below, in no particular order, are some photos to give a sense of the town.

After the villages we’d been in Riquewihr was equally cute (see photos) but much more touristy.  We had chosen to add an extra day there, and the route manager for our ATG tour had kindly offered to drive use to Colmar the following day, so we effectively added a day and a half in the village.

So, after some welcome down time we occupied our time up and down the Main Street, exploring the side streets, going into the shops specialising in various local produce and generally hanging out.

We tried two excellent local restaurants, and had our second tarte flambé, but by the time Matthieu picked us up we probably had exhausted what Riquewihr had to offer.

One of our highlights was a wine tasting at Hugel, a local producer (with some availability in Oz), where we had an educational tasting of local varieties at all their price points with an engaging staff member with excellent English.  We learnt lots and tasted some very good wines.  And picked up a couple of bottles for Paris.

After two nights in Riquewihr we moved on to Colmar, a much larger regional centre where we caught the TGV back to Paris.  We had an afternoon exploring the old part of town, again very picturesque, and had dinner in the excellent hotel restaurant (in this part of the world it seems the best dining is attached to hotels), before catching the TGV to Paris on Friday morning…

After navigating our way out of the village… 

 It was an easy walk to Bergheim…

   
    
 And then on to lunch at Ribeauville…

   
    
   
And onwards to Hunawihr and Riquewihr.