Musee Jacquemart Andre

When we left the hotel on Saturday, there was a street market outside the door.  This guy was rapping the bottom of the country loaves with a knife handle to get rid of loose crumbs/crust.

The cheeses smelled great--the meats looked mighty tasty.  No sign of The Mayor...although I am sure he is a frequent visitor to the market.

After our streetside coffees, we were on a mission-to find the Jacquemart-Andre Museum.  We'd never heard of it before researching this trip.  Looked intriguing.  It's a simple, city home of the Andre family.

Simple, of course is relative.  The mansion is smaller than the chateau offices at Fontainebleu.  On the other hand, they're on the Boulevard Hausmann...not 30 miles away by train.  This couple took art collecting (and sharing)very seriously.  Their art is extraordinary and you see it where that had it placed. Of course, it's hard to move a mural by Tiepolo.

The music room featured a second floor gallery with padded railing--so you would be more comfortable watching the performers below, I presume.
 

The featured exhibition of the moment revolves around the impressionists who painted plein air in Normandy.  The Andre's own impressionist works were augmented with additional Monets, Pissaros, Coubert, Degas....you get the idea.  You can have nice things if you don't have kids.  Wait a second...

After the museum, we ambled down the boulevard to stop in at Au Printemps and Galeries Lafayette in search of neckties.  It's a bit off-putting (and, weirdly, assuring) that there are security agents at all entrances to the stores.  A brief wanding and you're through.

It was time for lunch so we walked to the Opera Garnier and had steak tartare at Café de la Paix and spent some time watching the crowd pass by before heading home for Le Nap.

Last night, we relied on TripAdvisor reviews for dinner.  I'm not sure how we ever travelled without TA, but I'm guessing we ate some really crappy meals. (not that we've encountered any here)  A little place around the corner, La Buca, had consistently high marks so we thought we'd give it a shot.  The reviews all mentioned that there are only 12 seats, so we thought we'd likely be turned away.  Not so!  Apparently, Parisiens entertain at home on Saturdays.  We were seated and the owner explained the specials--disappointing us that the veal was gone (we were there about 9:30).  After consulting the kitchen, he was back with the news that there would be veal after all.  He suggested an octopus in tomato sauce with giant caper berries and olives as an appetizer to split and we each had the veal with pancetta, Marsala and giant shavings of parmesan. I think I touched my tongue to the plate.  For dessert, Terry had what he claimed to be the best panna cotta ever and I had an orange cream/cake dessert that they called 'Sorrento'.  It was served in a canning jar and had limoncello drizzled on top.  I will be making this dish in the future.