Day Six: Dinner: Restaurant Polidor

One of the restaurants dismissed during the anniversary dinner research was one recommended by Frommers but described as more of a classic drinking house of days gone by. It prides itself on not accepting credit cards since it opened in 1845. It is a favorite haunt of French professors due to the lower prices, or perhaps due to the minimal sanitation facilities (the "bathroom" is a hole in the floor).



Restaurant Polidor has been operating since 1845 and, although not pictured here, it appears some of the original staff are still waiting tables. Much like the famous Van Wert, Ohio, venue (perhaps they are sister restaurants?) Polidor is primarily staffed by lovely old ladies of few words.

Seating is bench style using the "pack 'em in" seating methodology. This means you know precisely what your neighbor has for dinner and what they plan on doing afterward. One of our dinner companions was a professor at a French preparatory school, with side consulting gigs with every type of engineering company in france I could think of. He designed brake systems for Renault, waste disposal systems for nuclear reactors and guidance systems for the French air force (I only made one of those up). He was a very interesting guy who almost did not talk to us because we ordered the Boeuf Bourguignon and he was looking for Americans to talk to (Americans never order beef, didn't you know). We learned all about the French educational system and about cross-Atlantic relationships (his girlfriend works in Boston). He also heartily recommends Legal Seafood, if you get to Boston. :)

So it was a tired crew who walked the eight meters back to our hotel from dinner, thinking of doing the Louvre on Friday. I see a theme developing here...

Day Six: Musée d'Orsay

Monet! Manet! Renoir! What is not to like about Musée d'Orsay? Not to mention Modigliani!

The walk to Orsay was nice, not too busy, though the museum is under serious construction, so entering is a little bit confusing. The Seine was busy as usual though.





Entering the museum using the Paris Museum Pass was a breeze again, skip the line and walk right in. The Orsay has a strict no photography policy (copyright issues?) so of course the first thing we did was take a photo!



Nothing exciting here, we saw the usual Van Gogh, Monet, Sissley, and other Impressionist and Post-Impressionist artists. The crowds were not horrific and we went through every exhibition in just a few hours. It was interesting seeing groups of little children gathered with drawing paper and colored pencils around famous paintings and doing their own interpretation. I did not observe any obvious successors to Van Gogh and these kids all had all their ears.

We turned in our audioguides and headed home on the Metro, pondering dinner.

Day Six: Louvre (not)

The plan was Louvre. A whole day (such as we have had, given working on tourist time) devoted to wandering around the Louvre. With our newfound Metro savvy, we took the Metro down this time, saving the long walk and dropping us right at the more or less secret Richelieu entrance to the Louvre, we walked right in with no line! We walked right into the Pyramid and set out to put together a plan for seeing things. It seemed we needed some help with the plan, so a bottle of wine seemed appropriate and luckily the Louvre people provide a nice cafe to think and ponder the world in. A couple appetizers and a bottle of wine and we were set to build our plan.





After most of a bottle of wine, we thought we had a plan. It mostly entailed getting a plan from the Louvre information. Unfortunately, they do not give out plans, either free or for pay unless there is a guide involved (at least that we could find).





So... We took a few pictures and walked over to Musée d'Orsay. To be continued...