So many museums in Paris.

The title really says it: there are so many museums in Paris. I’ve been here for a month and only been to a handful on them, but I already feel like I’ve seen so much art. The best part about them is that they are (usually) free for residents under 26, so we have hours upon hours of activities in Paris for free. Just a heads up – there are a lot of pictures of art in this one!

I will start by adding a couple of pictures of the trees I mentioned last time. I tried to take pictures, but I’m not sure how well you can tell the shape of them. I understand that they are for aesthetic purposes and help with keeping the shape once there are leaves, but I still maintain it’s a little funny to me.

With that out of the way, I thought I would bring out some of the museums I’ve been to. It’s mostly been art, but that takes many forms, doesn’t it? The first one we went to was Musée des Arts Décoratifs or MAD. There was an exposition called “Cartier et les arts de l’Islam. Aux sources de la modernité”, which was about the influence of Islamic Art on Cartier’s designs of jewellery.

Now the next place wasn’t really a museum, but it was very historic and interesting. We went to the Panthéon, which according to the Paris tourist office is “the temple of the French nation”. Under the church there is a crypt that since 1885 has been the last resting place of many great writers, scientists, politicians etc. I didn’t really know what to expect of it at first (and didn’t know famous people were buried there), so I was blown away by being surrounded by all that history.

Going back way further in time, we also visited the Musée d’Archéologie Nationale in Saint-Germain-en-Laye. It was quite interesting, since it started from the evolution of humans (if I remember correctly, from homo erectus) and went up to the iron age, after which came some more modern stuff. Since I know some important discoveries in the evolution of the human species have been made in France, it gave the exhibit a more interesting air for me.

I will leave some (very) modern art for my next post in an attempt to not make this one too long, but I just have to post pictures from Musée d’Orsay, Musée de l’Orangerie and Musée du Louvre. We saw so many paintings and sculptures from so many famous artists and we didn’t even have time to see everything. We definitely want to go back to Musée d’Orsay and Musée du Louvre since there were many things we didn’t see the first time around (if you’re planning on going, save a lot of time for it).

Obviously there are many many more famous artists and pieces of art featured in these museums, I just picked a few (more famous ones) to post. There is actually a line that goes to the Mona Lisa, but we didn’t have time to wait, so I snagged a picture from the side. In general to anyone visiting museums in Paris, I will reiterate – if you really want to look at the artwork, save a lot of time for it. For example the Louvre is huge and we only did a quick run-through of a couple sections, which still took us an hour and a half.

One of the things I love about France is how much history there is to experience here. Every once in a while in a park or a castle I go back in time in my head and think, ‘wait, but royals walked and lived here’ and just try to imagine the life back then. It kind of gives a different perspective to the everyday problems we have now. I will finish with another picture from the Louvre and until next time!

Au revoir!