Little biggie

The biggie comes up soon: the Louvre. Not like it used to be. I remember yonks back seeing the Mona Lisa from a few feet with just a few people. Recently, it’s been from a distance with multitudes and selfies. Now it requires a Leonardo ticket. Presumably you need that for the others, too, so we have it. But that’s tomorrow. Today it was the Musée d’Orsay, the modern art museum, ~1850-1940? Much better than I expected and quite a buzz. Some of the most renowned impressionists which are not usually my favourites, but I got a buzz here. Sculpture, visuals, decorative arts. Recent days have been Musée de Cluny (mediaeval) and Pantheon and the c. The Pantheon was disappointing; a secular mausoleum with the graves of Rousseau, Votaire and others. Not unexpected. I had high hopes for the Musée de Cluny but it was tiny (although what little was on display was excellent), the Roman ruins were not open for inspection and the major work, and we’d already seen the Lady and the Unicorn Tapestries in Sydney. The Musée des Arts et Métiers is a Scitech museum, worthy given the importance of some French science over recent centuries and Foucault’s (virtually original) pendulum.