Paris Day 2 - Musee D'Orsay (Part 1) 12.9.2021

bdoster5042

Feb 4, 2022

3 min read

Updated: Feb 11, 2022

Morning

Of course I was awake around 4AM, as even now a solid year past retirement, I wake up early between 5 to 6 AM at home, but here with the jet lag early in the trip, the 8 days of nonstop tours and activities, I slept like a babe every night. But yesterday was not all day busy as the train ride we were confined for 3 hours, so my body said nope time to get up. I made myself a coffee and did some picture organizing and waited for the group to come to the table.

Our mission this morning was to obtain our French Health Pass. So at the table we all complete the needed information from the provided website from the Opera Pharmacia, our closest pharmacy to our Airbnb.

So we all gathered at our table, phones in hand completing the forms (application link ) so we can present at the Pharmacy at the 8 AM to pay our 25 euros to get our QR Code to enter museums and restaurants. We of course had a application party, as our group manages to have fun regardless.

Then off to the Pharmacy to get our Health Pass which was a smooth process, we paid our 25 euros, got our receipt, move to the "Treatment area" and presented our payment receipt, showed the email where we had registered, and our Vaccination card. The Pharmacist then entered our information and printed out our health pass, which has a QR Code in the top right corner. We used this at all museums, restaurants and public venues. You were met at the door and this Health pass was you first checkpoint, after they scanned and saw it was valid, we move to the ticket boot for entrance.

Health Pass in hand we walked next door and had a proper le petit dejeuner, or breakfast. yummy croissant, baguette, butter and marmalade, coffee and juice.

The Musee D'Orsay opened at 10, after our bfast we took our first Paris Uber and arrived at 10:30 right in front of the Museum on Quai Antole France. The Museum overlooks the Seine and has views all the way to Montmartre and Sacré-Coeur. We had pre booked our other 2 museums, but the D'Orsay was already sold out their pre-booked tours, so we had to buy day of visit. The line moved quickly, again you do not get to the ticket office if you do not have a Health Pass QR Code.

We were able to borrow a wheelchair to facilitate mobility for one in our group as there is quite a bit of walking, very easy to get and return. Tickets were 16 euros for entrance and an additional 6 euros for the self guided audio tour cassette. Loaded with our tickets, transport and audio cassette we were off, mission was to find the impressionist galleries of Monet, Renoir and Van Gogh as well as to photograph the large clocks that are on the 5th floors on both ends of the museum overlooking the Seine. Maps are downloaded pdf, no more the souvenir copies for the scrap books.

On the 1st Sunday of each month, the museum is free for all with free access without reservations.

On the first floor is one of the 2 cafes found in the Museum.

The Musée d'Orsay was originally built as a train station to bring visitors to the 1900 World's Fair. Architect Victor Laloux built the Gare d'Orsay with modern features such as luggage ramps and elevators, as well as the 400-room adjacent Hotel d'Orsay. [ 1 ]

Love the Orsay Clocks found on each end of the 5th Floor with the Impressionist Galleries in between and the second Café with the second clock on the north end.