[ Dec.2019 ] After visiting Catacombs in Paris, it was the time for lunch.
My husband searched a restaurant online, but said that most of them in this area did not open for lunch.
At last he found one called Restaurant L’Empreinte and luckily it was very good.
The interior was simple and apart from that we could see the kitchen and chefs through the glass windows, it was not so special.
I ordered veal liver.
The taste of the Balsamic vinegar was a little bit too strong, but the liver itself was excellent.
The quality was as high as the one I had had in Canada and got impressed.
It was quite thick and plump.
My husband had duck, which he said was very nice.
As for wine, we had a 450 ml Bordeaux, which was a little too light for us.
I had the Crêpe with Calvados and my husband a cake with mango and biscuit of Brittany.
The lunch was very satisfactory.
The bill was €94, which was more than the one the day before, though.
I remember seeing the Michelin mark on their menu, by the way.
After lunch, we walked on and on looking for a metro station for line 1 or line 14 which were supposed to be running even during the general strike.
Our destination was Musée d’Orsay.
On the way, we saw a metro station for line 4 was open, so we went down there and found that line 4 was running that afternoon.
There was a person in charge at the station, so we asked her how to get to the Orsay.
She told us to change to line 1 at Châtelet and get off at Concorde from where we could walk to the museum.
And she said that the metro ride was free on the day because of the strike.
We followed her advice and arrived at Musée d’Orsay without any problems.
I had been to this museum twice before but this time, I wanted to come back because of the special exhibition of pictures of dancers by Degas.
There were queues to get in the museum, but we did not have to wait too long here.
There were some kinds of tickets and we chose the one which allowed us to go to Musée de l’Orangerie, too and that cost €18.
The special exhibition called “Degas at the Opéra” was held in commemoration of the 350th anniversary of Paris Opéra.
There were many paintings and others and the exhibition was fulfilling.
I could say that the dancers in the 19th century were chubbier and less skilful than current ones.
Maybe because of that, my husband said “Those in the pictures look more like cabaret dancers rather than the classic ballerinas”.
There were a few very famous paintings, but I preferred the last few painted in the 20th century which were warmer and more colourful.
When we were towards the end of the exhibition, at 4:30 pm, they announced that they were closing the museum in French, in English and in Japanese.
This is because of the general strike.
Usually the museum is open until 6 pm.
I felt uneasy, but people surrounding us did not hurry at all and kept watching the pictures, so we followed them.
We could hardly see other parts of the museum and the museum shop was already closed when we went, which was a shame, but we were happy as we achieved our initial goal.
