JLast days in Paris: the Orangery

Monet left his water lily masterpieces to France and he wanted them installed in the Orangery at the Place de la Concorde at the center of Paris. Many events occurred to keep this from happening (including WWII) but it is finished now and it is a major museum in the French system with the Renoirs, Cezannes and a few Modiglianis (my favorite). 

This guy was their collector, dealer and friend. 

The beautiful Place de la Concorde. 

This is my buddy who designed all the major gardens in France. 

Last days in Paris: Fondation Louis Vuitton

This is another Frank Gehry building. It just opened in October, 2015.

It's in the Bois de Bologne. 

It's an art museum, I guess. 

It's fabulous. 

It's full of really large installations. 

Reims: the cathedral

 In this cathedral all the French kings have been crowned and buried since the fifth century. 

The first French king, Clovis, was baptized in a small church on the site by a Bishop who would become St. Remi.  

This is a side aisle. 

Reims (pronounced rance: rhymes with France)

This is the champagne house of Mumm.

Making champagne is very complicated and takes 7 years. 

This is the tasting room. 

There are truly miles and miles of cellars under Reims.  300 years ago they mined the chalk from the chalk caves.  Then they realized it was really chilly down there and would be a good place to store stuff.

Nancy

So if I were planning a destination wedding, this would be the place. 

There weren't a lot of tourists here, amazingly.

The entire place looked like it had just been pressure washed. 

Illhaeusern

We are staying in a B&B on the river Ill that has flowed here from Strasbourg. 

We ate dinner here last night. 

Colmar

This is a major city on the wine road and over run with tourists the last two weeks of August. 

This is the House of Heads because there are over 100 heads sculpted on the facade. 

It's cute though. 

The town is most famous for the Isenheim Altarpiece which I show below. 

It is an elaborate folding thing. The museum has separated the panels so we can see it all. Their museum is being redone so the masterpiece is on display in what was a Dominican church. It is a perfect setting. 

It was a well done museum. 

The altarpiece was painted for people in pain from the plague to contemplate what Christ went through during his crucifixion.   Hopefully to take their minds off what they were going through. 

This is typical of the architecture of the town. 

As we drove into town we were confronted with a darn big Statue of Liberty. It turn out the sculptor Bartholdi was born here. He has a museum and workshop and is a big deal here.

At the entrance to this museum. 

This is Vercingetorix, a hero to France because he United the Gauls to attempt to throw off Roman rule during the time of Christ. 

His museum was actually the house he grew up in.