Beaux-Arts and the Art of Eating French Pastries

My plan for today was to get up early, go to the Musée des Beaux-Arts (the Fine Arts museum), and then to my bank to figure out how to do online banking. Of course, I slept in a little past the alarm, and in trying to make up for lost time, I put my American hair-dryer on high when drying my wet hair. Woops. I know I'm not supposed to do this, because the high setting is too powerful for these little French outlets. So, thankfully, no fire was started, but my hair-dryer is either dead forever, or dead for the rest of my stay in France. I can't get the reset button to reset. So... I added "buying a hair-dryer" to the list of things to do today.

I took the bus to the metro (which you now have pictures of), and then switched lines to get to the Museum. The metro stop let me out in front of the Opera house, which is a very unique looking building. The original opera house that was built in 1831 was redesigned in the late 1980's... creating what I like to call: a new/old building (picture to the left).

The Opera house is located right across the street from the Hotel de Ville

(Town Hall, pictured above). And on the other side of this gorgeous Hotel de Ville, is the Place des Terreaux with my favorite fountain. On the opposite side of where the fountain is located, you find the Musée des Beaux-Arts. This is an equally beautiful building, originally L'Abbaye Royale (Royal Abbey), one of the oldest monastery's in the region. It has a large sculpture garden in the center, with plenty of benches for people to sit and enjoy a book or mid-day lunch break.

The museum's collection has everything from Italian Renaissance paintings, to Impressionist art, to Decorative Art, to Egyptian, Middle-Eastern, Greek, and Roman objects. Unfortunately (for me), the museum doesn't have quite as large a collection of Impressionist paintings as the Musée d'Orsay in Paris, but I did get to see a few Renoir, Manet, Monet, and Degas paintings:) I also saw plenty of Egyptian mummy's, Greek vases, Roman sculptures, and sculptures by Rodin. And as you might expect, there are also several paintings by artists from Lyon or of the Lyon paysage (landscape).

I could have spent more time in the museum, but alas- the apple I had on the bus was not holding me over. I left, and will probably come back again to finish seeing the rest because it is free for those of us under 28. Yahoo! So I went to a nearby boulangerie and got a sandwich au jambon, beurre, et cornichons (ham sandwich with butter and pickles). I had forgotten what cornichon meant, or else I would not have chosen a sandwich with pickles, but butter is a common condiment on ham sandwiches... and it is good eatin'. I also got a little piece of chocolate cake (little different than our cake, I think it may even be flour-less actually... because it is pretty dense).

I stopped a few places to find my hair-dryer (all too expensive) and decided to take the tram home to stop by Porte des Alpes (again, I feel like I'm there everyday!). But, they had just what I needed, a cheap little hair dryer. I stopped by the bank on my way home to ask about online banking (which I got all straightened out!). And... because I had done so much walking and was very thirsty, I decided to stop at the boulangerie by my house to grab a bottle of water... and another pastry... because it feels sinful to go into a bakery and not buy something from the bakery. I always have some sort of pastry in mind that I would like to sample again, but they always seem to have different things. I'm sure this is mostly because I am inconsistent with which bakery I go to, but it may also be that they switch it up on a regular basis. Today, I was hoping for a petit pain au chocolat blanc (white chocolate biscuit thing), but instead, I got a triangle aux amandes (literally an almond triangle, but really just a triangle shaped croissant with an almond paste filling and shredded almonds on top- DIVINE!). I know I should be a little more careful about how many pastries I consume in one day (that makes 3 for today as I always, always have my pain au chocolat in the mornings), but I feel like with all the walking I do, I deserve it and I am on a mission to try them all.... well at least that is my excuse for now.

Thanks for reading! Reste cool:)