I skipped the Louvre and was happier for it

The Louvre is a once in a lifetime experience, and I mean that literally. I'm still recovering from the Louvre crowds of 2011, and so I politely declined a return engagement with Ryan this year. Instead, I toured the Musee d'Orsay and I loved it.

If you're not familiar with the Musee d'Orsay, it displays art created during the period 1848-1914. That includes several Impressionist and Post-Impressionist masterpieces, including works by Cezanne, Degas, Gauguin, Manet, Monet, Renoir and Van Gogh.

This group of artists were truly rebels. I really admire how they challenged the establishment.

Rick Steves' audio guide to the museum was helpful once again, though it took me about 30 minutes to find his starting point, a painting called "La Source" by Jean Auguste Dominique Ingres and two of his pupils. Considering it took Ingres 30 years to finish the painting, that seemed appropriate.

I took very few pictures. So many Impressionist paintings are truly works that one has to view in person. Neither prints nor photos do them justice.

The museum is located in a former train station and hotel. It was going to be demolished in the 1970s before it was rescued to house this collection.

I couldn't resist taking a picture of the museum's copy of "Van Gogh's Bedroom in Arles." A print of this work,  a hand-me-down from Ryan's grandmother, hung in our bedroom in Lexington, . 

These ghostly reflections caught a man sketching Degas' "Small Dancer Aged 14".

I snapped this photo of Daumier's "The Celebrities of the Juste Milieu" for Ryan. Daumier was a political cartoonist and this collection of 30 caricatures of politicians (mostly). You never know when Ryan will need a new project. 

The museum collection also celebrates sculptures, architecture and decorative arts. This is a model of the Paris Opera House.