29 January 2009, Thursday—There were still a few museums on my list for this final day of the Museum Pass. High on the list was the Musée de l'Orangerie which "offers a fabulous concentration of masterpieces from the Jean Walter and Paul Guillaume Collection, a highly original insight into modern art featuring Cézanne, Renoir, Picasso, Rousseau, Matisse, Derain, Modigliani, Soutine, Utrillo and Laurencin."
It was not to be. Today was "strike day":
ON JANUARY 29, a quarter of France's 5 million public-sector workers honored a general strike call, and up to 2.5 million people joined protests in 200 French cities to express their disgust with austerity measures proposed by French president Nicolas Sarkozy.
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| Galleries closed due to strike | Vélib' bikes near Orsay | Houseboats on Seine |
While some of the museums opened later in the day with limited staff, the Orangerie was closed the entire day. It was certainly part of the Paris experience to be in the middle of a general strike, but very frustrating not to be able to take full advantage of the Museum Pass. Throughout the day I saw groups of strikers marching down main streets with traffic snarled in all directions. On the Vélib' bikes it wasn't a problem. The problem was that the museums I visited that were open, Orsay and Louvre, might as well have been closed since most of the exhibit halls were closed.
It was a nice, mild day so I decided not to fret about not being able to use the Museum Pass and enjoy the day. I walked along the Seine, past the many colorful houseboats on the Right Bank near the Place de la Concorde and the Champs-Elysées. Later I hopped on a bike and rode to Montmarte. I had copied some pages from the Rick Steves' Paris Guidebook for the walking tour of Montmarte, so I parked the bike and strolled past the Moulin Rouge, avoiding the girlie show barkers along the way. I passed by the homes of Van Gogh and Toulouse-Lautrec and on to Sacré-Couer, the highest point in the city.
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| View from hotel | Entrance to Van Gogh's apartment | Public workers strike |
Many street artists were out offering to draw portraits and selling paintings of the church. A crowd was gathered on the steps in front of the church relaxing before a vast view of the city below. I walked downhill and found another bike and rode back to the hotel, having to visit three stations before finding an open slot. During the day most of the bikes are parked in the center of the city. After work they migrate back out to the more residential areas.
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| Artists in plaza with Sacre Couer in background | View of Paris from Sacre Couer | Sacre Couer |