Wow. Just – wow. The Orsay covers mid-19th century to early 20th century, and simply has so many masterpieces. We visited on Thursday evening when they are open late until 9:45p, and thoroughly enjoyed the 2.5h hours we spent wandering the halls here. The upper floor filled with Monets, Van Goghs, Degas and so many others was awesome. Some highlights:
We bought the combined Orsay / Orangerie ticket, but we didn’t visit the Orangerie until our last day. A much smaller space, the ground floor consists of two large oval rooms filled with massive Monet waterlily paintings as part of his Nymphéas series.
Downstairs is the Guillaume collection, with a number of interesting pieces from Modigliani, Picasso, and Matisse and others.
The Louvre is seriously enormous. We arrived a few minutes after 9am (when they open) and were through security and the ticket desk within 15 minutes… we left at 2:30pm, and still had plenty of rooms we hadn’t yet seen. Thankfully, we were able to see all the sections that we were most interested in, as well as a few pleasant surprises. Some of the highlights:
