Musée Marmottan Monet

It was a kind of Paris-Melbourne day today - cloudy, stormy, wet, sunny, mild, cool - in rotation!  Our agenda is full, trying to do all the things we want to, so we're doing our utmost to keep to it, no matter what the weather brings.

We started the day with café and roulé aux pralines at Au Petit Versailles du Marais.  There is a queue from the register to the door of this boulangerie at most times of the day - at lunchtime they have two queues, one just for bread and the other for choices from the cabinet.  This morning we arrived at a time when it was quiet and Julien, the manager, said, "Ça fait longtemps" - it has been a long time.  "Un an", we said.  He remembered our coffee order - un allongé et un café crème!  I love these moments that make me feel a part of Paris.

After breakfast we metro'd to Musée Marmottan Monet in the 16ème, an arrondissement bordering the Bois de Boulogne.  We had not visited this gallery before and the current temporary exhibition is quite special - a private collection of works by Manet, Renoir, Cézanne, Van Gogh, Vallotton, Matisse and others.  The collection was brought together between 1906 and 1936 by a Swiss couple, Hedy Bühler and Arthur Hahnloser, who decorated their home, Villa Flora, at Winterthur, near Zurich, with the works.

We loved the exhibition.  I especially loved the photographs taken at Villa Flora where some of the artists were regular visitors and you could see the artworks in the background...placed where Hedy and Arthur wanted them hung.  We had some favourites - Nice, cahier noir by Henri Matisse; Les Tuileries by Claude Monet; Les boulevards extérieurs by Camille Pissaro.  I loved everything by Félix Vallotton.

Apart from the exhibition, we could wander around the house to view the permanent collection of Monet works and others.  The house and the collection have such an interesting history - through the Marmottan family, a bequest from Michel Monet, and then later bequests from artists and art lovers.  Wonderful!

We headed home just as the sun came out, through the Jardins du Ranelagh.  It seemed like a door had opened and let out all the local dogs...they were chasing sticks, running madly, tails wagging.  Nearby was a school - we knew it was a primary school by all the scooters secured to the fence until home time!

A detour to the 9ème to a record shop - Plus de Bruit - and then home, coming out of the Bastille metro to more rain...