Musée D'Orsay

Besides it being a nice, big museum with a great art collection, I thought it was really visitor friendly. They didn’t rush people out 15 minutes prior to closing. Instead they were open til closing time and people filtered out at that time. Although I didn’t go in, the gift shop was open after museum closing time, which I thought was really nice. I had never seen that before.

If you have limited time or energy, get straight in the lift and head for the third floor.

If you are going to a number of museums and want to buy a cad, don’t go here or the Louvre first. The queues will be far shorter somewhere like the Rodin, which is also well worth seeing.

Beautifully converted from a former railway station (complete with huge ornate clocks!), it has lots of light which makes it feel very spacious and airy inside. There is a great selection of Impressionist paintings.

Orsay was on our list during my last visit to Paris. On Saturday we passed by and the lines were a bit long, so we decided to postpone for a day. On Sunday morning the lines were huge… (and it wasn’t even “freebie Sunday”) bad decision. None of us felt like standing in line, so we didn’t go. Oh well, another excuse to return to Paris someday.

It used to be a railway station and it’s been fabulously restored and converted into a museum. It’s so bright and airy, although the fact that the best light is in the upper floors means that the impressionist paintings, the museum’s most popular section, are slightly crammed into the smallest space. You can do the whole museum in one day (I did) but I wouldn’t really recommend it – pick sections that you really want to see and spend more time in them. I ended up going back a second time and would have gone back again if I had time. The sculptures are really worth visiting – my favourite one is the polar bear on the right-hand side. The cafe is expensive but it’s totally worth it just for its view.