Wednesday 21 December 2011 - Musee d'Orsay

Spend much of the day in the musee d'Orsay today.  It has been nicely renovated and there is much more exhibition space available.  We saw a lot of paintings we had never seen before - Van Gogh, Monet, Gaugin, Bonnard etc.  The rooms which formed part of the PO Railway hotel have been splendidly restored.

Had a brief lunch at home - baguette with Morbier and Langres cheeses.

Morbier and Langres were both excellent.

For dinner we went to Le Relais de Venise near the Porte Maillot.  We arrived a little early and had to line up outside but we were seated in good time in a group of three tables with two Peruvians and a lady from Paris.  The meal was as expected and we had a good time using English, French and Spanish as needed.  The couple from Lima had only arrived in Paris at 1600 after a twelve hour flight and had walked up all the way from their hotel in St. Germain.  The salad was good and the steak was just as we asked for it, of course the sauce, made from their secret recipe was very good indeed.  Mary had a vacharin for dessert while I had the plate of cheese.  The St. Emilion wine was excellent.  It was raining when we came out so we decided to take the metro and helped the Peruvian couple on to the metro to get back to St. Germain.