Paris Luxury Tours

Many of our clients ask us whether we recommend purchasing the Paris Museum Pass (PMP), whether it is good value or, in any case, worth buying. Our answer is no, a definite maybe and yes.

The PMP is currently sold in denominations of 2, 4, and 6 days, at prices of 32, 48 and 64 euros, respectively. When you use your pass the first time, the date of first use is stamped on your pass and you must use the remainder of the denomination you have chosen on consecutive days. You do not have the luxury of selecting discrete and non-consecutive days after you start to use your pass until the total number of days has been reached.

It seems to me the PMP management is either mean or short-sighted for not allowing its clients to choose isolated days on which to use their passes. It only requires printing a space on the back of the pass for each of the number of days covered by the pass, and writing in the date of each use, if different from the precedent, until they are all filled. What difference would it make to them? As logical as that sounds, it is not currently an option.

This means that you have to plan on seeing several places per day on back-to-back days for the PMP to become a financial advantage worth mentioning, versus buying tickets individually at different places. The question then is: will you enjoy seeing more than a couple places covered by the pass per day on consecutive days? The answer depends on your level of energy and passion.

I reach museum-overload within a couple of hours. The idea of going to several museums in the same day approaches one of my ideas of torture. True torture is doing that day after day. Of course, living in Paris and armed with annual passes, I have the luxury of visiting a museum here for half an hour, or another there, for an hour, whenever I wish. That is not an option when traveling, and the last time I was in Bruges I did not flinch at doing several museums per day for several days.

You are the best judge of whether you can apply yourself enough to make the PMP good value, in terms of saving money, versus paying the individual entry fees. Visit the websites of the museums/monuments that you plan to visit and tally the single entry costs, and compare it with the cost of the PMP. Also see http://www.parismuseumpass.com/en/home.php, the PMP official website.

The clear advantage of the PMP is obviating the need to queue to buy the individual museum/monument tickets. At the Louvre and Orsay Museums, unless you know your way around, they can be hideously long. Having the PMP conserves the most limited and precious asset you have when you visit Paris: the time available to see everything you would like. That is how the PMP provides unquestionable value.

Even so, you often need to queue for the security-check to enter a museum or monument. They usually move quickly, but you can speed up the procedure, or dispense with it altogether, by not carrying any bag, including a purse, or a back pack. Touring lightly has so many advantages….

As detailed at http://www.parisluxurytours.com/museumpass.php, Paris Luxury Tours procures the PMP for its tour clients, at modest cost, and delivers them to their Paris address on the eve of their arrival. We can do the same for individual tickets to many Paris museums, such as the Louvre, Orsay and Orangerie, as well as for the Chateau in Versailles. However, one of our next posts will explain how and where you can easily procure all of those on your own, avoiding any surcharge.

Admirers of Impressionist art have long considered the Musée d’Orsay the required stop in Paris, http://www.musee-orsay.fr/en/home.html. Unless you are interested in some of that museum’s other French art of the 19th century, you may do well to put off your next visit until 2011. That is because the entire fifth floor, where the majority of the Orsay’s best Impressionist works are usually exhibited, is closed for re-structuring, and it will not reopen until March next year, if all goes well.

In the meanwhile the museum has lent about 100 of its Impressionist works, including many of its best, to the Mapfre Foundation in Madrid, where they are on display in an exhibition “Impressionism: a Modern Renaissance” that purports to explore the early evolution of French Impressionist painting in terms of influences and inspirations from outside sources (such as Goya and Velasquez). It will move on from Madrid to San Francisco in May, and then to Nashville in October, before the works return to the Orsay in early 2011.

Meanwhile leftovers of the Orsay’s early French Impressionist works, and some of its best Impressionist art of later years, have been re-distributed in the outer perimeter of the ground floor of the museum. There is no particular order in the way that they are exhibited that I was able to detect during a visit last week, but perhaps I missed it. Still, I did not enjoy my last visit at the Orsay as much as I usually do.

Where can lovers of French Impressionism requite their passion in Paris in 2010? The Orangerie Museum, http://www.musee-orangerie.fr/ in the Tuileries Gardens retains most of its impressive collection of Impressionist works (except for three Renoirs currently on loan to the “Renoir in the Twentieth Century” exhibition at the Grand Palais). Monet’s exceptional suite of eight giant “Water Lilies” paintings awaits you. The works are beautifully displayed, and it is certainly worth a visit.

Our other favorite museum for Impressionism in Paris is the often-overlooked Musée Marmottan Monet, which is located on the west edge of Paris, http://www.marmottan.com/uk/index_uk.asp. It is home to the most outstanding ensemble of Claude Monet paintings in the world (over 140 works, spanning the master’s entire life, from teen-ager to octogenarian), as well as a worthy collection of works of other great Impressionists, such as Manet, Degas, Renoir, Pissarro, Sisley and Berthe Morisot.

The Monets until recently were on display in the basement gallery of the 19th century private mansion that is the Marmottan’s home at number 2, rue Louis Boilly, in the 16th district of Paris. However, the museum’s new director, Jacques Taddei, has implemented revolutionary changes in way the museum displays its collections. Now some of the Impressionist works are distributed in the rooms on the first floor (which hitherto had been reserved exclusively for Paul Marmottan’s collection of Empire art, furniture and furnishings, and the Wildenstein collection of medieval Illuminations and manuscripts), as well as on the second floor of the museum.

The new director’s efforts to breathe new life into the staid Marmottan includes an extraordinary exhibition, “Fauves and Expressionists: From Van Dongen to Otto Dix,” which occupies the basement gallery, in place of the Monet collection. It displays 50 works, many remarkable, from a diverse range of artists that includes Vlaminck, Raoul Dufy, Braque, Kirchner, Kandinsky, Munch, Nolde, Grosz, and others. On loan from the Von der Heydt Museum in Wuppertal, Germany, one of the stars of this collection is an exceptional work by Kees Van Dongen, “Nude of a Young Girl.”

The exhibition aspires to projecting directions taken by art after the Impressionist movement. It is scheduled to end on Feb. 20th, and it will be interesting to see how the inspired curator uses the underground gallery when the Fauves and Expressionists exhibition concludes.

One thing on which you can almost always count at the Marmottan, in stark contrast to the Louvre and Orsay Museums: there are usually not many other visitors, and you can often view many of its seminal masterpieces (Monet’s “Impression, Sunrise,” included) in close proximity, in complete tranquility. The building itself and the Empire collections should not be over-looked.

The museum opens at 11 am, last entries are at 5:30 pm, and it is closed on Mondays. Full fare entry fees currently cost 9 euros. Owned by the Académie des Beaux-Arts of the Institut de France,  the museum is not covered by Paris Museums Pass, http://www.parismuseumpass.com/en/home.php. It is an eight minute walk from the La Muette metro station (line nine).

What is the reason for so many different types of places to eat in France? What is the difference between a café, bistro, brasserie or restaurant? Their common denominator is that they all serve food, but how are they different?

Cafés mostly cater to local residents, who casually drop by either for something to eat, or drink, or both. The first café in Paris, Le Procope, started out in 1686 when the only item it served was coffee, a new drink at the time, and let us not forget that the French word for coffee is ‘café.’ Since then, cafés have evolved into neighborhood haunts that one frequents to have a drink of anything from water to tea, coffee, soda, juice, wine, beer or spirits. They also have a selection of light fare, from sandwiches to hot dogs, salads and a small selection of hot or cold meals that usually include a daily special.

Cuisine quality in cafés can be good, or far from it, so local experience in choosing a café is important. Prices are usually reasonable, but that can change if the café has turned into something of a legend, such as Les Deux Magots in St. Germain, a café opposite the St. Germain Church tower which dates from 1090, and where the setting and mood approach a cross between a Hollywood set and Cannes during its Film Festival, and where prices can be a lot more than twice what you might expect in a normal café.

It and its closest rival, the Café de Flore, are known to Parisians as ‘literary’ cafés, thanks to the former patronage of the likes of André Gide, Albert Camus, Jean Paul Sartre and Simone de Beauvoir, whose spirits linger on their premises and add magic to your experience at either one.

Bistros are a step up the ladder of cuisine sophistication, when compared with cafés. They serve simple fare in an informal setting. They are not bars in which you stop simply to have something to drink. They are eating establishments where the cuisine can be very attractive, but not usually very complicated to prepare. At the time of this writing, there is a bistro in the 4th district of Paris that sports a Michelin star: Benoit. That is unusual for a bistro, and the anomaly is explained by the fact that its owner is France’s stellar chef, Alain Ducasse, who, of course, charges Alain Ducasse prices, which are much higher than typical Paris bistro rates.

In the bad old days before the European Economic Union, brasseries were microbreweries that served their own brew. Brasserie literally means brewery. Since the Middle Ages, if you craved beer, whatever the hour, your best option was to drop in on your favorite brasserie, where, after quenching your thirst, you might also be struck with a pang of hunger. Brasseries catered to those pangs by offering food that is good accompaniment to beer: lots of pork dishes, steaks, chops, sauerkraut… whatever beer washes down well.

When the EEC emerged, constituent countries lobbied for regulations to protect that part of the national identity most precious to it; and in Germany beer was right near the top. To ensure that its market would not be sullied by unscrupulous foreign breweries, the EEC adopted rules governing brewing that were so stringent that most microbreweries could not comply, and therefore they stopped brewing. Did they go out of business? Of course not: they simply started selling beer produced by those breweries that complied with the new rules.

Brasseries are also casual establishments, where dress is informal and where the quality of the cuisine is more or less on a par with bistros. There are exceptions, such as Maxim’s a beautiful Belle Epoque brasserie in Paris, which is neither casual, nor inexpensive.

Most brasseries feature, when in season (normally all year-round except May to August), a shellfish bar outside the establishment, where an ‘écailleur’ or shucker will on the spot open oysters and clams and assemble magnificent platters of shellfish for the customers inside, or for take-out clients who usually order them in advance. A variety of types of oysters, clams, mussels, shrimps, sea urchins, periwinkles, whelks, crabs and lobsters are usually available.

Brasseries continue to be open earlier and remain open later than most bistros or restaurants. The majority offer service at stand-up bars, but some do not. They continue the tradition of providing fare that is good accompaniment to beer, but have branched out to sell a wide selection of other drinks, including wine, and there are even some brasseries that specialize in more elaborate seafood. Le Dome in Montparnasse is a good example. It started out as a cafe, evolved into a brasserie, and today its fare is so refined that many patrons consider it one of the best seafood restaurants in Paris.

That brings us to the top level of eating establishments in France: restaurants. They offer cuisine prepared by chefs talented enough to concoct complex dishes that most of us (adherents of Julia Child excepted) do not have the savoir faire to conjure. They are where serious, sophisticated cuisine can be found; and where considerable effort is lavished on transforming the ingredients into something unusually enjoyable when done well, or over-worked and unrecognizable when not.

Is restaurant fare better than that found in the other levels of dining establishments? It depends on your perspective, mood and budget. You are far more likely to find inspired combinations of flavors in dishes prepared at restaurants crowned with three Michelin stars such as Le Pré Catelan or Le Grand Véfour, when compared with excellent bistros such as La Fontaine de Mars and Chez Michel, or great brasseries such as Balzar or Le Stella.

Each of the establishments cited above list among my favorite places to dine in Paris. I choose bistros and brasseries far more often than restaurants because I do not always feel up to eating sophisticated cuisine, which is frequently rich and sometimes a challenge to digest. Restaurants are also more formal places, where the formality and bill climb in proportion with the number of stars they may have garnered.

On the other hand, I travel a great deal through the French countryside, where the array of wonderful restaurants, frequently classified as ‘Auberges’ (the French word for inns) is so alluring, and their prices are so seductive, that one can hardly pass them by. But that will be the subject of a future post.