Month: June 2019

Falling in Love with the Musée d’Orsay

Just across the river from the Louvre sits one of our all-time favorite museums: the Musée d’Orsay. The former Beaux-Arts train station with its imposing clock is home to pieces from France’s national art collection dating to between 1848 and 1914, it’s a top stop for visitors who love the Impressionists as much as we do. Here are just a few of our favorite things to see when you visit!

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1. Olympia, Edouard Manet

This painting shocked Parisians when it was first displayed in 1865 due to the woman’s confrontational gaze at the viewer – especially because a number of details, including the orchid in her hair, identify her as a prostitute.

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2. Femme à l’ombrelle, Claude Monet

Orsay hosts several different studies or essais of this subject by Claude Monet. We love the way that the windiness of the day is evoked through Monet’s brushstrokes as well as the way that the figure’s face is almost entirely hidden.

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3. Petite Danseuse de 14 ans, Edgar Degas

Degas’ paintings of ballet dancers are famous among lovers of the Impressionists, but he also brought this love of ballet to his sculptures, as with this bronze and cloth work. The iteration on display at Orsay is actually a copy of an original statue, made of wax with cloth and a wig, which is displayed at the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C.

4. La chambre à coucher, Vincent Van Gogh

The Orsay’s Van Gogh collection is a big draw, featuring a version of Starry Night and one of Van Gogh’s mesmerizing self-portraits. But we love this painting of his bedroom in Arles, where the viewer gets a keen sense of claustrophobia, despite the bright colors used.

5. Sculpture Garden

There are several individual sculptures to which we could draw your attention, but what we love most is to wander through the sculpture garden as a whole. What was once the hall of the train station now welcomes a vast array of marble sculptures with a wonderful view of the interior clock.

Top 5 Cheeses to Try in Paris

The world of French cheese doesn’t begin and end with Brie! Charles de Gaulle famously said that it was impossible to govern a country with 246 kinds of cheese, and seeing as we now have over a thousand, there are more than enough fromages for the discerning turophile to sample. Here are our five must-tries for your next trip.

1. Chèvre frais

Goat cheese or fromage de chèvre is a delicious treat any time of year, but springtime is prime goat cheese season and the perfect time to sample chèvre frais, or fresh goat cheese. Chèvre frais is aged just a handful of days, for a cheese that’s super creamy and light – perfectly paired with a Provençal rosé.

2. Camembert de Normandie

Legend has it that Camembert got its start when a Parisian priest, fleeing the guillotine, shared the recipe for his local cheese – Brie – with a Norman woman. She ostensibly used the recipe with the milk of local Norman cows and the molds for local Livarot cheese and came up with this delicious, slightly stinky cheese you’ll find in the fridge of nearly every French family.

Camembert de Normandie is one of 46 French cheeses boasting an AOP, which protects its integrity. Choose raw milk (lait cru) Camembert for a gustatory experience unlike anything you’d find back home, where pasteurized is the norm.

3. Vieux Comté

Comté is regularly voted France’s favorite cheese, and for good reason: this hard Alpine cheese boasts a deliciously rich, fruity flavor that becomes nuttier and butterier with time. While Comté can be sold starting at three months, seek out aged versions (24-41 months) for the best flavor experience.

4. Bleu d’Auvergne

Even if you’re not sure you love blue cheese, bleu d’Auvergne is worth a taste. This relatively mild cow’s milk blue may have been the first blue cheese ever made in France and is particularly tasty on German- or Danish-style whole rye kernel bread.

5. Chaource

Rich doesn’t even begin to describe buttery Chaource, a double-cream, bloomy-rinded cheese made in the Champagne and Burgundy regions. Similar to double-cream Brie, Chaource boasts a mushroomy aroma and an unbeatably creamy texture that makes it the perfect pair for Champagne.

3 Gothic Churches to Visit in Paris (That Aren’t Notre Dame)

If you’re planning a visit to Paris in the coming months (or years), chances are you won’t have the chance to duck inside and see Notre Dame Cathedral in all her splendor. But just because Our Lady is in for a long journey to restoration doesn’t mean you can’t observe some beautiful Gothic architecture elsewhere in the city. Here are five of our favorites.

1. Sainte-Chapelle

Just steps from Notre Dame, you’ll find Sainte-Chapelle, a royal chapel built in just ten years (from 1238 to 1248) by King Louis IX (Saint Louis). The chapel was initially intended as a giant reliquary to house the Crown of Thorns and other Holy Relics that, until the blaze this spring, were subsequently kept at Notre Dame.

Today, Sainte Chapelle is best known for its extensive collection of 13th century stained glass windows, which line the walls of the second story of the chapel.

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2. Saint Germain l’Auxerrois

This church steps from the Louvre encompasses many styles of architecture, from Romanesque to Gothic to Renaissance. While it is certainly beautiful, it is perhaps best known for its bell, Marie, which tolled on the night of August 23rd 1572 to mark the beginning of the St. Bartholomew’s Day Massacre, which was instigated, many say, by the Queen of France, Catholic Catherine de Medici.

Thousands of Huguenots, in town for the wedding of Catherine’s daughter to the incumbent King Henri IV of France (formerly Henri III of Navarre) were killed during the massacre.

3. Saint Eustache

If you ask us, Saint Eustache is one of the most underrated churches in Paris. It’s not surprising: this Gothic marvel which was built between 1532 and 1632 was unfortunately hidden for years during the rebuilding project at Les Halles. But the new shopping center is finished, and now Saint Eustache towers over a beautiful green lawn, where you can sit and admire it in all of its splendor.

Our 5 Favorite Things in the Louvre (That Aren’t the Mona Lisa)

We spend lots of time in the Louvre, and frankly, we love it. Encompassing millennia of art from the four corners of the globe, it’s hard to find a museum that competes with its immensity, comprehensiveness, and beauty.

But it is crowded (as one recent strike attested to), and that’s perhaps true nowhere more than in the tiny room that holds the even-tinier Mona Lisa.

We’re of the in-and-out mentality when it comes to this room; once you’ve seen her, it’s time to move on to other things. Luckily, many of our other faves don’t attract quite the same attention, which means that when you visit the Louvre with Paris Uncovered, most of the time, you’ll avoid the crowds. Here are just a few of our faves.

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1. The Medieval Louvre

When, in the 1980s, the museum underwent expansion (including the building of the now-iconic pyramid), the space under the Louvre was excavated, and builders found that much of the original medieval Louvre, built concurrently with Notre Dame across the river, still remained. Today, you can actually walk in the former medieval moat (now dry, of course!)

2. Liberty Leading the People

One of the newest pieces in the museum dates to 1830: Eugène Delacroix’s “Liberty Leading the People” – a depiction of the June Rebellion of 1830 (painted in the same year!) that inspired, among other things, Victor Hugo’s character of Gavroche in Les Misérables.

3. Venus de Milo (and the Ancient Greek Gallery)

While Venus de Milo can sometimes attract crowds just as big as those trying to see Mona Lisa, visitors have an advantage here for two reasons: firstly, Venus is quite a bit taller than Mona (and you can walk all the way around her), but secondly, she’s located within a larger gallery of ancient Greek sculpture that you can peruse while waiting for the crowds to dissipate.

4. Victory of Samothrace

This gorgeous Greek statue of Nike, goddess of victory, has been perfectly placed in the center of a huge staircase, giving you tons of vantage points from which to examine her and take tons of photos unhindered by other visitors.

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5. Sculpture Gardens

It’s hard to imagine ever aligning the terms “Louvre” and “tranquil,” but the museum actually does take on an air of tranquility as you wander the immense sculpture gardens. Sometimes, we take a seat here just to soak up the beautiful light and art that surrounds us!