Paris: Day Five - Eiffel Tower Revisited; Musee D'Orsay

After a long and wonderful day at the Louvre yesterday, we retired briefly to the hotel for a shower and change of clothes and then made our way to have dinner with a Parisian family courtesy of a program called 'Meeting the French'. Our hosts were the Cornu family, and the dinner was very, very good.

During dinner, we chatted with our hosts about our adventures in Paris and discovered that Msr. Cornu is a curator at the Musee D'Orsay, where many of the most famous impressionist masterpieces in the world reside. I have always been curious about the connection between the legendary libation absinthe and the impressionist masters, and Msr. Cornu happened to be an expert on that very subject!

Before I could wink, there were two bottles of absinthe sitting before us, and I got my first taste of La Fee Verte under the tutelage of a master! The drink was quite strong, and had an herbal taste underlying the overt licorice flavor. It really was something special, and we spent the time discussing the impressionists at length, as well as french wine and cheese, the history of Paris, Msr. Cornu's adventures in China (where he met his wife), and many, many other views of the world.

Msr. Cornu asked politely if we would be visiting the Orsay during this trip and I mentioned that we hadn't planned on going due to the 3 hour (plus!) line to get in. He then offered to meet us the next morning at a side entrance, if we were at leisure, so that we could enjoy the Orsay with him on a private tour. SWEET!

Nightengale and I woke up early to get something out of the way before our mid-morning appointment with Msr. Cornu: our ascension of the Eiffel Tower. When we arrived at the tower, we were delighted to see no line at all and we went directly to the lifts for a short ride to the first level. Once there, we decided to get something warm to eat since it was quite chilly - two lemon crepes and a crocque monsieur, which were delicious.

The final lift to the top was pretty exciting. It's fast (straight up!) and you can see the ground disappear while your ears pop. The view from the top is incomparable, and we spent a good while taking it all in.

Once the cold had set us to shivering, we decided to move on to the next part of our day: Musee D'Orsay. A quick cab ride had us there right on time, and we met our new friend at the side entrance. The balance of our morning was spent in Msr. Cornu's place of work, admiring works of art that, like the Louvre, I had only ever seen in textbooks. It was a wonderful visit, and I look forward to returning the favor to Msr. Cornu and his family one day soon.