Musee d'Orsay et Musee L'Orangerie

Today we went to the Musee d’Orsay and the Musee L’Orangerie. I highly recommend going to see both museums on the same day. L’Orangerie is a fairly small building and can easily be seen in about an hour. The main room to go see are the Monet Water Lilies rooms. These pieces are some of Monet’s most famous.

After you leave the L’Orangerie, you should head towards the Musee d’Orsay. The d’Orsay is considerably larger than the L’Orangerie. In the d’Orsay I suggest that you go see the Impressionist hall, the Toulouse lauTrec section, and finally the Palais Garnier model. It is also inside of a famous old train station, which is pretty neat!

The Impressionist hall is full of beautiful paintings including many pointillist painting. Pointillism is my favorite style of the impressionists. This hall has something to offer everyone!

The Toulouse lauTrec section is amazing because it gives you a  look into life in Paris during 

the Belle Epoque. His work is some of my favorite because it so beautifully displays his time.

The Palais Garnier model was by far my favorite part in the d’Orsay. It is SO cool! When we went to see the actual Palais Garnier I had a hard time imagining the Phantom of the Opera actually being able to haunt like the myth says. But when I saw the model it all made sense. We only saw a small, very small, portion of the actual building. It is MASSIVE! The basement is huge and above the ceiling there is a massive attic where the chandelier pulley is!

Just seeing these few things makes visiting these two museums VERY worthwhile.

Palais Garnier

Palais Garnier

Blogged by Marcus Bellamy

I’m not going to lie – I was pretty excited about seeing this place, and while I was disappointed (in regards to my excitement in going), I was intrigued and amazed nonetheless, which turned the outing to the Palais Garnier a fantastic jaunt for that evening.

The Palais Garnier was built because of a competition put in place by Napoleon III.  Architects submitted designs for the new opera house, and the design, drawn by Charles Garnier, won the competition almost unanimously.  Unfortunately, Napoleon III did not live to see the completion of this structure which was made in part as a monument to him.  Let’s step inside and take a look at this magnificent building.

Here you can see, in the low ceiling of the rotunda, something that was unheard of in Garnier’s time: the architect’s signature.  Garnier was the first architect to include his signature on a building of this magnitude.  You can almost make out the dates “1861” and “1875,” the dates of the beginning and ending of the Opera House’s construction.

Garnier wanted his Opera House to be dedicated to the arts, and who better to dedicate it to than to Apollo, the Greek god of music.  Above the grand staircase is a mural of the gods, and on one side is this one of Apollo in his chariot:

However, Garnier could not decorate the whole of his creation with images of Apollo, so he designed the building with motifs of Apollo, such as his lyre, which can be seen in many places throughout the opera house.

Today, the Palais Garnier mainly produces ballets, which are no small event.  Here are three such ballets that have performed on the stage of Palais Garnier in recent years:

Défilé du Ballet

Djémil Variation Act 1

Gipsy dance in Don Quixote

Now, you may have heard whispers of the legend of the Phantom of the Opera, which originated from this esteemed establishment…

Much to my dismay, they are untrue.  There never was an Opera Ghost, as was told in the story written by Gaston Leroux, nor was there ever a lake or river beneath the foundations of the opera house.  In reality, there was an abundance of groundwater on the build site, which Garnier used advantageously: he designed a double foundation to protect the superstructure from moisture, which incorporated an enormous concrete cistern – this would relieve pressure of the external groundwater on the basement walls AND serve as a reservoir in case of fire.  In fact, there now exist within this cistern several carp and eels.

If you are ever in Paris, neglecting the chance to take in the splendor of such a theatre would be a mistake on your part.  Be sure to stop by the Palais Garnier, if even just for a moment, if you ever find the chance.

Les Invalides

     Wow. Where do I even start? Napoleon's final resting place. A hall dedicated to swords. One of Napoleon's horses that he had preserved. Les Invalides is a highly interesting little place. 
     Originally started by King Louis XIV as a hospital and short-term living place for aging and injured soldiers, construction on Les Invalides was started in 1670 by the architect Liberal Bruant and it was inaugurated in 1679. It holds on of the "greatest triumphs of French Baroque architecture" in its famous golden dome, which was inspired by St. Peter's Basilica in Rome, Italy. Many historical events have taken place here; muskets and cannons were taken by French Revolutionists one morning to use against the Bastille later that day, in 1840, Napoleon was entombed here, and in 1894 the degradation of Alfred Dreyfus was held in the main building. Needless to say, this place is not just a hospital anymore; it is a museum dedicated to the military history of France. 

      The above picture is of Napoleon Bonaparte's sarcophagus, one of the most famous military leaders of all time who changed the face of Europe forever by his military campaigns. I have to say that I wasn't really prepared to see this. You can think that you are ready to see something of this magnitude, but it's kind of hard to comprehend right in the moment. It's so strange to think that someone who had such an impact on the modern world is buried right out in the open, and I was only 20 feet away from him. All around the dome is the burial place of many military leaders of France, including some members of Napoleon's family and many officers that served with him. There is an awesome alter at the front of the chapel that shows the spirit of Louis XIV and his love for gold. Ex:

     Since the whole museum is a huge place, I decided to focus on two main parts: World War I & II and the Napoleon sections. There are SO many well preserved uniforms from all the different countries involved in the conflicts in Les Invalides. It was pretty awesome to see what someone from Austria was wearing in World War I, and they even had an entire section dedicated to American military uniforms from World War I. They make it really interactive by showing visual, moving maps of different battles and campaigns and also having many television sets showing short, informational movies about the wars. They also have quite the collection of artillery, and it was cool to see the progression that technology went through just from World War I to World War II. In WWI, they were using bayonets and small rifles, but in WWII, they were using big guns and tanks. Funny what a difference 30 years make in weapons technology. Speaking of technology, the audio guides here were pretty great; they were iPod touches that you just keyed numbers in to listen to different segments. It was very user friendly and didn't weigh a ton like some of the other ones we've used. 

A high ranking soldier's uniform from World War I

     After we had spent quite a while in the World Wars section, we headed over to the French Revolution and Napoleon section. Least favorite part? It took us a good fifteen minutes to find because they were doing construction on the building, so it made finding the entrance a nightmare. Once we finally found where we were going, it was definitely worth it. Looking at all these rooms dedicated to Napoleon, his successors, and those that helped him achieve his goals was highly enjoyable. It seems to me that Napoleon rivaled Louis XIV in his estimation of himself, and this is not an easy feat. Haha. There are paintings, sculptures, and exhibitions dedicated to the famous little man. Even one of the horses he rode has been stuffed and is on exhibition.. Talk about vain. But it makes for a good museum visit, so I'm okay with it. 

     This is definitely a place I would recommend if you were visiting Paris, and I think that probably almost an entire day would need to be taken to see all of the many war exhibits. And finally, to really give you the true spirit of what Napoleon was, I will leave you with this fine quote: "France has more need of me than I have need of France" -Napoleon Bonaparte.

-Samantha Tosh 

Musee de Carnavalet: Histoire de Paris

-Jessica Boyd


Up until the end of February, we learned all about the history of France as a country but we hadn't discovered the history of the city we are living in. The museum is located about 5 or 6 blocks away from the Bastille and the Opera house across the Seine. 

With nearly 600,000 works in over 100 rooms, Carnavalet houses the largest  collections of the city of Paris:  which  combines archaeological remains, the views of Paris yesteryear, models of ancient monuments, signs, decorative ensembles from buildings missing, anecdotal or historical scenes, portraits of famous Parisians, memories or stories of famous men of everyday life and a unique set of the revolutionary period. 

One of the more interesting exhibits is a series of salons decorated in the style of Louis XIV. These would have been even more impressive if I had seen them before we went to Versailles where I saw the true Louis XIV style. Somehow, a replica in a museum does not compare to his humble abode. 

Another one of my favorite exhibits was the La Belle Epoque hall. It houses many paintings depicting Parisian life in the early 1900s. It was such a glamorous time: days strolling the tree-lined boulevards and eating at street cafes followed by nights filled with the opera and a late dinner.

Under the Second Empire, at the time the work of Haussmann upset the old Paris, the Paris administration conceived the idea of a museum dedicated to the history of the city. Thus was born the Carnavalet Museum . Inaugurated in 1880, is the oldest municipal museum in the capital. Until then, sculptures, paintings and murals were displayed in City Hall and the various municipal buildings, including churches.

Paris is one of those cities that was apart of a wide range of history, from Roman times up until the present. It has always been a center of culture and the Musee de Carnavalet is the perfect place to display everything Paris has to offer.