We woke up, had breakfast at home and decided to go to L’Orangerie, one of my favorite museums in Paris. We walked there by the River Seine, passed in front of the Grand Palais and the Petit Palais, and finally arrived at the L’Orangerie.
L’Orangerie is an art gallery of impressionist and post-impressionist paintings located in the west corner of the Tuileries Gardens next to the Place de la Concorde in Paris. Though most famous for being the permanent home for eight Water Lilies murals by Claude Monet, the museum also contains works by Paul Cézanne, Henri Matisse, Amedeo Modigliani, Pablo Picasso, Pierre-Auguste Renoir, Henri Rousseau, Alfred Sisley, Chaim Soutine, and Maurice Utrillo, among others.
Monet was the first artist I heard of and remember of in my life. I remember exactly where it was. I was around 7 years old and I went with my family and a couple of friends to see his exhibition in São Paulo at the MASP. I loved it so much that my mom bought this book explaining everything about him
and his life. And yes, I still have it.
So for me, to see his ‘Nymphéas’ from that close was definitely an amazing experience. It is just so beautiful and it also makes me feel so good while I look at it. Yes, I was there for a while.
After we went downstairs to check the other artists, like Cézanne, Matisse, Picasso, Marie Laurencin, Renoir among others. They also had this temporary exhibition of American Artists which was really nice as well.
I like this museum because it is not huge and they definitely have this amazing selection of really good artists, in my opinion, of course. It’s up to what you like.
After we left and headed to the apple store located at the Louvre because my phone broke and wanted to figure out what I was going to do, and on the way there we walked through the Tuileries Gardens.
The Apple Store is located under the Louvre. We were quite surprised with what they did. We actually were confused at first, because google maps told us to go straight to where the pyramid was, and the last time I went there, that was exactly the entrance of the Louvre. So when we got there, we realized that they built this shopping mall under the Museum. Really good idea and also very beautiful inside.
After this, I went to meet my friend Aurelien at a record store called “Techno Import. If you know me, you know we were there for a couple of hours digging. They had lots of good stuff, too bad I was going back to Brasil on the next day.
Then we had dinner at this restaurant called ‘Le Rouge Lime’ which was delicious and after we had a couple of drinks at ‘Le Repaire de Charonne’. It was good to meet him after so many years. We met when I lived in California and we haven’t seen each other for around 3 years or so. So it was good to spend a little time with him.
Cristianna Saldanha 