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We began our recent trip to Europe with a solid week of shops, markets, and appointments with English dealers. By  Friday afternoon, when we arrived in London, we had logged nearly 1000 miles on our rental car, and most of our large purchases were in the hands of our shippers. The weekend held Portobello market, an antiques fair on Sunday, and private meetings with London jewelry dealers.

On Monday morning, we boarded Eurostar for a high-speed train voyage under the English Channel to Paris. We were somewhat concerned about discussions of the labor strikes that were causing garbage and trash to line the streets and the demonstration that had forced the Louvre to shut its doors. We were relieved when we arrived at Gare du Nord on schedule and were able to take the Metro to our hotel near the Contrescarpe.

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Trash filling Place de la Contrescarpe, a popular Left Bank tourist spot a few meters from our hotel, now a victim of the strikes

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We were in Paris to visit two favorite museums. The first was Musee d'Orsay, with its outstanding collection of French art from the second half of the 19th century through the first decade and a half of the 20th. The museum is housed in a late 19th-century train station on the banks of the Seine. The station, built for the 1900 Exposition Universelle, is reason enough to visit Orsay. But it is a magnificent venue for viewing the art treasures it holds.

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Musee d'Orsay, viewed from its 7th floor observation deck

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The collection is astounding, containing 81 works by Monet, 81 by Renoir, and scores of works by their contemporaries, including Cézanne (56), Courbet (48), Vuillard (70), and many more. But we were not here for Monet or Renoir, but for two artists who, quite consciously, it seems, eschewed the values of these perhaps more renowned contemporaries. We were here for Degas and Manet. Quite by chance, a show of works by the two friends and sometime competitors began on the day of our visit. We wandered amongst their works, assembled from museums around the world, considering the thought-provoking narrative before us.

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Self-portraits by Degas and Manet

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Manet's Berthe Morisot au bouquet de violettes (1872)

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Copies of two paintings of Delacroix, painted by Degas in the 1850's

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Following a delicious lunch in the museum's Cafe Campana, we spent the afternoon wandering through galleries, enjoying more of the marvelous collection.

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Jean-Francois Millet's La Petite bergere, a favorite painting by a favorite painter

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A smaller-sized copy of a familiar monument -- the original, a gift to the U.S. from France

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We had planned to visit the Louvre briefly the next morning but, when we had gone online to make several attempts to schedule a time slot, we learned that slots were booked well beyond our stay in Paris. Fortunately, we had considered a visit to this gigantic museum secondary to a day in the more intimate and newly reopened Musee de Cluny, France's national museum of the Middle Ages. As with the Louvre, our attempts to book online were futile; the museum's website was down.

We decided to take our chances. We made the twenty minute walk to the museum, with fingers crossed. When we arrived, not only was the museum open, there was no line!

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Inside the frigidarium, an ancient Roman bath

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In the newly renovated and expanded museum more than 2,300 artifacts from the Roman era to the 16th century are on display:

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stone carvings

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polychromed wood sculptures,

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and jewelry.

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Perhaps the most striking pieces in the collection are The Lady and the Unicorn tapestries, which are now displayed in a large room, as they would have been when first woven. Entering the room in which they hang, after walking through seemingly endless stone corridors and rooms of various sizes, the feeling of warmth and comfort induced by the soft reds and blues of the fabric leaves no doubt as to their purpose.

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We left Musee Cluny in the early afternoon. Instead of returning to our hotel, we walked towards the Seine and crossed Pont Cardinal Lustiger, from which we could see Notre Dame and the six cranes assembled outside it to support the restoration work going on inside. Having visited Notre Dame several times, we were but curious tourists, observing the work and imagining how the tragedy might have ended.

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Restoration work continuing at Notre Dame

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Our visit to Paris was coming to an end. In the morning, we'd take the Metro back to Gare du Nord, where we'll board a Thalys TGV for Brussels.

Au revoir, Paris.

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