We got off the Metro and walked into the Tuileries Gardens behind the Louvre. We were searching for the Creperie stand Brian and Emily Nedry had recommended to us! Unfortunately, as we looked around all we could find were ice cream stands! We saw this beautiful tree with purple blossoms and I had to have Mark take a picture of Spence and I. I think it is my favorite picture of us from the whole trip! thanks, Mark!
We walked through the gardens, hoping to find the Creperie, but was out of luck! The L'Orangerie is in the South west corner of the Gardens. Rebecca Davis told us before we left how dissappointed they were when they went that the L'Orangerie was still under construction. She described Monet's paintings within. We were very excited that it was open for us! We had seen a smaller version of Monet's "Water Lilys" at the Orsay museum, and at first I was slightly disappointed. (I had expected huge room size paintings) These were big, but we'd seen bigger at other museums. Then I sat and read about how even as Monet was going blind with cataracts, he planned these 6-foot tall canvases for the Orangerie. There are 8 of the canvases of his garden and pond at different angles and different times of day. Monet worked on these for 12 years!! The last 3 years, he had more energy as he had an eye operation. He didn't live to see them installed in the Orangerie. Isn't that cool! I found as we went to different museums, the more I knew about the history of the artist and the paintings, I enjoyed the experience so much more! In the gift shop here, I was finally able to show Mark a piece or Torchon lace that was in a book. No luck in finding the real thing, though! We enjoyed the rest of the museum, too. In fact, Mark said it was one of his favorites!! More later...
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