Writing to you today from somewhere just a little different and it is glorious. There’s so much space, it’s as if I’m travelling by personal house rather than plane.
All the big names have been visited and my suitcase is packed.
50% toys, 45% food and 2% envirobags from favourite local supermarkets to take home for continuity as I hit the ground running back in Sydney doing that first grocery run after that first proper Sydney coffee….
There’s no denying it. I’m heading home. With a happy heart and a rested mind. It’s been a fabulous trip with just the right combination of education, sightseeing, eating and retail therapy.
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| The Grand Palais. |
Paris was a kind, efficient and very safe host.
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| The Petit Palais. |
I rode the metro endlessly as I explored on my own.
I’ve met lovely people from all over the world.
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| The Alexander III Bridge |
And I’ve got both wonderful memories and shiny new things that I will look back on (or use) with fondness.
It’s confession time. I, Sydney Shop Girl, visited only one museum in Paris. Not counting my swoon session as I walked around the Louvre. I’m just not that great at art at all. I know what I like when I see it. I like the big picture approach – I sail past art pieces at a clipping pace. I’m always paintings ahead of audio guides and I tend to daydream as I listen to the learned voices attempting to make me more cultured through my headset. It’s terrible at my age and I’m not proud of it all.
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| The Thinker. |
I visited the Musee Rodin and in my own simple way, I truly, truly savoured it.
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| The Thinker, thinking hard from another angle. |
There is a perfectly manicured sculpture garden behind the hotel that allowed me to walk as briskly as I liked with the sun on my face and the fresh garden air lightly embracing me while appreciating some of Rodin’s sculpture.
Rodin’s work is considered the genesis of modern sculpture.
His work is complex, turbulent and physical.
He worked in the traditional way using clay and plaster moulds with meticulous technique to create his sculptures. His focus was on realism while most around him created works that were more decorative or focused on traditional themes such as mythology and religion.
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| A view of the hotel part of the museum from the pond in the sculpture garden. |
‘Perfectly curated’ is a phrase that’s thrown about these days in the Instagram world and I am therefore rather reluctantly using the term here but it’s true, Musee Rodin is perfectly curated.
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| Young Woman in A Floral Hat. |
The selection of works on display here not range Rodin’s entire career but many of his most lauded works are also part of the permanent exhibition.
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The Man With the Broken Nose
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I will never tire of walking along the corridors of French buildings with their graceful arches and checkered tile floors.
My favourite of Rodin’s sculptures is La Catherdale.
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| The Cathedral |
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| Robe de Chambre de Balzac |
More beautiful floor tiling with bonus marble steps. The building itself is a work of art in its own right.
This is a portrait of Vincent Van Gogh by Pere Tanguy.
It really was a Moment being fortunate enough to be in the presence of Rodin’s sculptures and the works of others that he had collected. I saw, I thought and I felt thanks to the luxury of time and travel.
And then it was time to return to the real world. Or at least the real world as it is in Paris where fuel can be purchased in between museums and historical buildings and it’s no big deal to be walking by restaurants that look like this.
Or to find the Academy of Music on your way to the supermarket.
I got distracted on the way to do the shopping by things besides buildings as well.
At a Pierre Herme store I not only bought myself a couple of macarons to have with my peppermint tea before bed but I also discovered that Monsieur Herme makes mooncakes. My type of mooncakes. The kind that aren’t traditional but rather confections of various layers of mousse and sponge cake. No time or space to try this time, unfortunately.
