After some necessary rest - which meant that we slept through the continental breakfast the first day - Cornelia and I started our sight-seeing excursion. We decided to take the metro to St. Michel and see the Museé D'Orsay. It was time well spent.

The museum itself is a converted train station. It used to be the terminus of the Paris-Orleans line. The building itself is a work of art, with a glass roof and statuary decorating the outside. The building also has two huge clocks. But the real treasures are inside.

We rented one of the audio tours, which I would recommend if you are not an art history major. (If you are, then you probably don't need one). We decided to focus on the impressionists and catch some of the sculpture on the way out. To see such works as Monet's Water Lillies, Van Gogh's Portrait of Dr. Gachet, and Renoir's Dance in the City and Dance in the Country up close and personal is stunning.

One thing that infuriated me - people taking FLASH photos of the art. I don't know if most people know this or if they do they might not care, but the white-hot light of your average digital camera flash DAMAGES ART WORKS! If you want a photo, turn off the damned flash!

There are signs everywhere saying "no flash photos" but people either did not see them or ignored them. That aside, the art is really overwhelming. Works by Manet, Matisse, Pizzaro, CĂ©zanne, Van Gogh, Monet, Courbet, and Gaugin all in the same floor.

To see them up close gives insight into the brush strokes, but I personally prefer to view them from about 10-15 ft away. The image is much more forceful that way. The sculpture was awesome as well - bronzes by Rodin and others - as well as marbles and the plaster that is used before bronze casting all showed a delicacy that I still don't understand.

There was one piece called "Nature" which had four different types of stone in it, including Lapis, and another bust carved out of porphory, a blood-red stone.If you go to the Musée D'Orsay, plan to spend a lot of time there. We were there for four hours and did not event get off the fifth floor for most of the time. We had packed a lunch and ate on the steps of the museum while a guy who said his name was Sir Edward from Paris played the guitar.

He was seated on a little stool and had a 10-string instrument that allowed him to chord with his left hand and tap the melody with his right. He was doing some Beatles (Norwegian Wood) and other tunes and was a real pleasure to listen to. He had some of his CDs for sale, but I didn't buy one - 15 euros works out to about 22 dollars, and I wasn't that impressed with his playing.

After the Musee D'Orsay, we went to the Louvre, and we had three things that were necessities - the Mona Lisa, the Winged Victory and the Venus de Milo. Saw them all, and then spent some time brousing the Greek, Roman, and Egyptian antiquities.

That was the nice thing about the Museum Pass - it lasts for six consecutive days and so if you want to spend all six at the Louvre you can without buying a new ticket. We decided we would come back later and check out the Emperor's Apartments. We wanted to get back early because we wanted to visit Versailles on Thursday. We would later learn that our plan was not how things would work out.