Asian art and the Nympheas from Claude Monet: Paris museums part 2!

Every first Sunday of the month the museums in Paris welcome visitors for free... As I was there on one I combined the biggest collection of Asian art in Europe and waterlilies-impressionism in one day.

A breathtaking insight into the culture of the Asian continent offers the Musée Guimet! I was impressed by an exotique mix of enormous Cambodgian stone carving, Indian colours and Nepalese book covers. The Chinese treasures (out of stone, wood, jade) let us discover different periods and a whole new world...Some scary objects were for example the Tibetian bowl made out of human skull (on the picture below)! I was pleasantly suprised how a museum visit helps us to travel far away even if just for some hours:)

In the Musée de l'Orangerie (in the down left corner of the Tuileries gardens) I admired one of the largest (according to their length of up to 15 meters!) waterlilies paintings of Claude Monet (1840-1926). The French impressionist have painted approximately 250 oil paintings with Nympheas (waterlilies).

Those pieces of art depict Monet's flower garden at Giverny and were the main focus of Monet's artistic production during the last thirty years of his life. Many of the works were painted while Monet suffered from cataracts. A pair of two oval rooms (the first floor of Musée de l'Orangerie) are nowadays home of 8 long waterlily murals.

The museums of Paris-part 1

Paris is a real museum-jungle! One of its treasures, the National Museum of Natural History (Musée national d'Histoire naturelle), is hidden in the green Jardin des Plantes (Garden of the plants).

Here i would like to show you the Gallery of Palaeontology and Comparative Anatomy, which is just one part/ bilding of the whole museum. There I was taken aback by an impressive collection of nearly thousand skeletons, building kind of a huge heird of bones to welcome the visitors.

Above you can see the skeletons of different whales.

On the second floor I met some dinosaurs and other instinct animals. The incredible fossil collection shows a whole world kept alive as traces (of bones, teeth, shell, imprints of leaves or animal tracks) in sedimentary rocks.

This was an excellent way to travel in time and follow the evolution that took place on Earth. Thats why several scientists have refered to the museum as one of the most beautiful in Paris! I can confirm: it is really worth seeing...

Savoir vivre...or what makes Paris so attractive for visiting?

While exploring the French capital and being surrounded by a funny mix of Italian, Japanese, Spanish, British and American tourists I could not help ask myself the question:"How did this city make so many people just fall in love with it"? And there is no secret actually!

Paris is loveable for what it is: a huge pot of beautiful gardens, impressive architecture, countless museums, cozy salon de thès, delicious restaurants, nicely smelling patisseries, colourful boutiques, plenty of open-air markets....

Indeed the discovery and enjoyment is much bigger if one do speak and understand French (which is true for almost every place on Earth). And last but not least there is the famous "Savoir vivre"= to know to live"" (and I would add "to enjoy it too").