Nantes to Paris (by train) and Musée d'Orsay

June 26, 2019

I arrived early for my train but didn't have long to wait. I think it originated in Nantes and there was lots of time to find my car and board once the track was posted.

This was a TGV and I'd made a reservation for my bike; there's a limit of two per bike-accommodating car. Yes, there's a place for two bikes, but just barely. It's also the place for large luggage. I rolled my bike on, but there were two steps down and a tight corner to navigate into the car itself. But I managed. It worked better to take the panniers off to lean my bike in the prescribed place (and it was necessary if anyone else arrived with a bike) and fasten the seatbelt-like strap to hold it in place. I'll mention here that this early morning trip (not the earliest, though) cost only 40€.

I had left too early for breakfast at the hostel so bought coffee and a croissant on the train. The coffee was just okay but the croissant wasn't. Luckily I'd bought some rice pudding at a shop last night so I had something decent to eat.

Arriving at Gare Montparnasse, the next step was to figure out how to get to the hostel I'd booked. There are 3 HI hostels in Paris and I chose the one in the newest building, with bike storage, and which was also to the northeast of the city centre for easy escape to the airport on Friday. It also has 24-hour reception.

Garmin wouldn't calculate a route so I used Google Maps (bicycle layer) on my phone. This isn't the most convenient because I have to keep stopping and pulling my phone out of my pocket. Somehow the voice navigation is off and I haven't figured out how to turn it back on. However the route wasn't complicated so it wasn't too annoying. The route mostly used bike lanes (good) but almost every block of every street was undergoing some sort of construction (bad).

Definitely not complicated, unless you miss a turn (as I did). That out-and-back was only a few blocks.

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I got to the hostel and put my bike in the lockup. With all the construction and traffic, I wasn't inclined to ride in the city when I don’t know my way around. I sponged off and changed clothes in the bathroom and then put my panniers in the luggage room. I still had most of a day to explore Paris, though I hadn't counted on the heat wave. It was well over 30°.

I took the Metro to the Musée d'Orsay, thinking it would be less busy than the Louvre. That might be true, but it was still very busy, with a long queue for tickets. Lunch first, perhaps.

I had a really good salad for lunch at a nearby place called Nicole’s and drank the entire litre carafe of water I was brought. It must have been 35° and a bit less in the shade (and somewhat less in the brasserie). Rehydrated, I returned to the museum and the line was shorter, but this was the line for security...like in an airport. After that, there was another line for tickets.

It was reasonably cool in the museum and I was on my own with another entire day ahead in Paris, so I decided to spend some time. I looked at the sculptures, the Art Nouveau furniture, ..... the only area that was really crowded was the Impressionist galleries. Not to mention the two cafés. I thought I'd take a break and have a cold drink, but everyone else had the same idea...

Below are just a few of the photos I took.

Jean Antoine Idrac, Mercure inventant le caducée, 1878

Jean Hughes, Œdipe à Colone. This marble version was commissioned by "l'Etat" based on a plaster version exhibited at the Salon des Artistes français in 1882. I like the expressiveness of the faces.

Vincent van Gogh, La Méridienne (dit aussi La Sieste)

Luc-Olivier Merson, La Vérité. This was a decoration for the staircase in the Watel-Dehaynin Hotel and was obtained when the hotel was demolished in 1974.

Jean Delville, L'Ecole de Platon, 1898. It was intended for the Sorbonne but never installed there.

This Art Nouveau bed looks really inviting, but I'm sure I'd trip over its big feet if I got up in the night.

The sign said these were the doors to a "salon d'essayage" in a shop. I suspect it was a very high-end boutique.

I posted a photo of this clock seen from the other side on our day in Paris at the beginning of the trip. As I remember, that day was cold and rainy.

The museum shows its roots as the Gare d'Orsay, built for the Universal Exhibition of 1900. I'm pretty sure it was still a rail station when I first visited Paris in 1981; the museum opened in 1986.

Look at the decor! Hard to believe the building was completed in less than two years.

A close-up of one of the the big medallions

Ernest Hiolle, Arion assis sur le dauphin. A marble version "commandé par l'État en 1868 d'après le plâtre"

After I left the museum, I walked across the Passerelle Léopold-Sédar-Senghor (formerly known as passerelle Solférino) which crosses the Seine between the Musée d'Orsay and the Tuileries. This pedestrian bridge (on the site of a former bridge) was built in the late 1990s but I'm wondering if the engineers considered the padlock load...

View through the padlocks, passerelle Léopold-Sédar-Senghor.

There are a lot of locks! A man was selling locks on the bridge, right behind me as I took this photo. I heard someone say they were all marked 2019 so maybe they get cut off on a regular basis.

I returned to the hostel to check in and relax. I had requested a double private room but was given a 4-bed dorm to myself. It was very spacious, easily large enough to put up my tent and ensure it was dry. However, that was its only really good feature. I'd expected something more like the hostel I stayed at in Banff...

The fancy new building, about 6 years old and intentionally built as a hostel, isn't so great. The ventilation could not handle the heat, which is somewhat understandable during this exceptional heat wave, but it didn't seem to work at all. You can't open a window yourself though several have hinges; they were sending a staff member around to do it from a maintenance catwalk outside. The toilet rooms and the showers all smelled ancient. Their ventilation certainly wasn't designed for the heavy use they get in a hostel. You also have to put your magnetic key card in a slot to have electricity, meaning it won't work to leave a device charging while you're out.

The most annoying thing, though, was that the water temperature was not controllable: the shower temperature was set and so was the temperature for the sinks. I looked; they weren't even plumbed for hot and cold. There was just a single supply pipe. No cooling shower, no brushing your teeth with cold water, and if you want cool drinking water, you have to trek down 3 flights to the water cooler in the basement. Whose bright idea was this?

I walked up the street to La Vieille Pie, a burger-and-beer place for dinner. The burger was not bad but I enjoyed the cold beer more.

Today's ride: 8 km (5 miles)
Total: 3,218 km (1,998 miles)

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