Le Musee d'Orsay and les Jardins de Luxembourg

The view from the top of the Musee d'Orsay--you can just barely see Sacre Coeur in the distance.

 

A zoomed in view of Sacre Coeur.

 The inside of the Musee d'Orsay.  Lots of amazing impressionist and post-impressionist paintings are here.  We didn't take any painting pictures, but the building itself is quite cool--an old train station.

The Jardin de Luxembourg is even more lovely than I remembered--this time with summer flowers and imported palm trees.  We loved the single-hued flowers--many different yellows here, surrounding the pond where kids can rent little sailboats.

Maman in one of the classic Parisian park chairs.

We went to a fun puppet show in the park--the first four rows of the theatre were pour les enfants exclusivement (only for kids).  

We love seeing French women of all ages in dresses of all lengths on bikes--being feminine does not slow a lady down here (okay, well, many of their shoes do, but that's another thing).

This is just funny.

The Bon Marche has the best grocery store in town--beautiful veggies. My Madame frequently made endive salads when I lived here.

This doggy patiently waited for his owner at the register.

A very nice rare fish salad.  Our rubric for finding places to eat is packed seating, French clientele, and not to expensive--we're having great luck.

We walked home along the Seine (got in at midnight). People were picnicking all along the banks, especially this stretch of Paris plages (Paris beaches). They have sand, showering areas, umbrellas, a pirate ship for kids to play on, enormous beach chairs, foosball, palm trees--it's all free and open to the public.