Rodin Museum

I started out my last free day before my Gate 1 tour would start with a visit to the Rodin Museum (Musee Rodin) in Paris housed in the Hotel Biron. “Hotel” in France can mean a very elegant building, which the Hotel Biron was. I took a short taxi ride from my hotel (not elegant but very nice) to the Rodin Museum.

“The Thinker”

The main attraction at the Rodin Museum is Rodin’s “The Thinker,” one of the world’s most famous statues. It is located in the museum’s Sculpture Garden. The statue is very impressive.

“Burgers of Calais”

Another famous Rodin sculpture is also in the garden: The “Burgers of Calais.”

“The Kiss”

The collection at the Rodin Museum totals 6,600 sculptures, 8,000 drawings, 8,000 old photographs, and 7,000 objects d’art. Photo: one of sculptures inside the museum––”The Kiss,” 1889.

Van Gogh Painting

Auguste Rodin also donated some of his paintings to the museum, those of Van Gogh, Monet, and Renoir among them. Here is “Le Pere Tanguy” by Van Gogh hanging in the museum.

I have put my photos of the Rodin Museum on a slideshow. Go to
http://www.peggysphotos.com/paris–rodin–museum/
(Slide Shows, Western Europe, France, “Paris: Rodin Museum”).

DHL, Fed Ex, Candy Store

After I emailed Lufthansa Lost and Found this morning about my iPad (see the Days 1–3 album), telling them to mail me its case and to dispose of the iPad as I couldn’t figure out the courier service procedure to get it delivered to me, they gave me a big hint: try DHL or FedEx. They are courier services. At first I was going to wait on it and ask my Gate 1 tour director for help, but I decided just to visit the DHL office for information, taking a taxi there. I needed its address and asked one of museum staff to find it for me and he did. So, the first French kindness of the day. I couldn’t flag down a taxi from the Rodin Museum, so I went into a cafe to ask a waiter where I could find a taxi. He actually came out of the cafe to point me to a taxi stand, I started walking to it, and then he told me to wait as he had flagged down a taxi. The second act of French kindness of the day. DHL did not work out (1 hour spent there) and they gave me directions to a close–by FedEx office, where I did have success (3 hours). The directions were to keep on the same street and walk about 15 minutes, but Bouvevard Haussmann soon ran into five streets. The third act of French kindness of the day was when a French woman grabbed the paper with the FedEx address on it from my hand and showed where what street to continue on. She also walked down the street checking building numbers. The FedEx workers who wouldn’t give up trying to figure out why my order wouldn’t go through deserve the fourth French kindness of the day award. I took a taxi from FedEx to the Le Maison du Chocolat shop (I had to ask directions to it from a security guard at the Bon Marche department store as I didn’t have the exact address (a fifth act of French kindness) to buy chocolate requested by my daughter, but I forgot that she wanted dark chocolate, which ended up in another project to go back there another day. Photo: passed by in a taxi.

Seine Cruise

My Gate 1 tour met with our tour director, Simeon, early evening. We had only 27 people, all Americans, on our tour––a nice number. What was very unusual about our tour was that more than half of the group were foreign–born Americans––from Greece, Vietnam, Haiti, the Philippines, Taiwan, Syria, and Poland. We were truly a poster tour for great American immigration. After our meeting, we immediately left for a Seine cruise. We went on a boat like the one we passed on the Seine (photo). We sat at the top on benches. A big crowd got on the boat and I did not find any of my tour group. Instead I found myself sitting next to an interesting businessman from China. He had just arrived in Paris and hadn’t done any sightseeing, so I had fun pointing out Paris buildings to him. There was supposed to be a loudspeaker doing this but we didn’t hear it where we were sitting, so I was his tour guide.

Pont Alexandre III

On our cruise, we sailed under a number of bridges. There are 37 bridges across the Seine in Paris, with three pedestrian–only bridges and two rail bridges. This photo is of the Pont Alexandre III, built between 1896 and 1900 and named for Tsar Alexander III who had concluded the Franco–Russian alliance in 1896. There are fames of Pegasus statues on it representing science and the arts.

The Louvre Museum

We sailed past the Louvre museum.

Notre Dame Cathedral

We also sailed past the Notre Dame Cathedral.

Eiffel Tower

The cruise ended near the Eiffel Tower.

I have put my photos of our Seine cruise on a slideshow. Go to
http://www.peggysphotos.com/paris–seine–cruise/
(Slide Shows, Western Europe, France, “Paris: Seine Cruise”).

Twinkling Eiffel Tower

We didn’t have a usual welcome dinner this evening, so I ate dinner at our hotel’s restaurant with one of my tour mates as a companion. Later on that evening, I went outside the hotel to take this movie of the Eiffel Tower twinkling. If you take a Seine cruise when it is dark, you will probably be able to view the Eiffel Tower twinkling.

YouTube: https://youtu.be/qEjwxqjWYss