We had a reservation this morning at 10 at Musée d’Orsay, a museum of French art located in an old train station. We started out with the Rick Steve’s audio guide which took us through the highlights throughout the museum, occasionally pausing to go rogue and enjoy works not covered in the highlights. The entire upper level is dedicated to Impressionism and Rick’s audio tour provided high level profiles on several of the artists, such as Monet, Manet, Renoir, and Gaugin. The Monet works were particularly engaging for us, just having visited his home in Giverny yesterday and being able to mentally picture the scenes that inspired the art.

Our tickets also included a temporary virtual reality exhibit celebrating the 150th anniversary of French Impressionism. Neither of us were quite sure what to expect and it was definitely quite an experience. They fitted us with goggles and provided some instructions and set us loose. The goggles gave us a little additional tutorial, helping us understand the cues that would tell us how, when, and where to move through the exhibit.

The story revolved around the Impressionists planning and executing their first exhibition, in defiance of the conservative French masters. We were led around by a chatty virtual guide who showed us around the exhibition space and 1874 Paris, allowing us to witness discussions between various artists.

Because we were in the exhibit with other visitors all following the same story but at slightly staggered times, our headsets would show us silhouettes of other visitors near us so that we wouldn’t bump into them. Our silhouettes were labeled so we could identify each other from other parties, but we could only see each other’s labels. Everyone else just showed up as an anonymous silhouettes.

Sometimes it was slightly congested in an area and we would have a hard time getting to the spot indicated by the narrator. Unfortunately for Becky, her headset glitched toward the beginning of the tour and the silhouettes disappeared, showing no one around her, including Chuck. That was obviously incorrect, since she had been clinging to Chuck’s arm since the beginning. The silhouettes came back just in time for her to shoulder-check an unsuspecting fellow visitor, who luckily had no way to identify her later in the real reality to get even. Chuck’s headset also glitched at some point, but in his case it just went into “real life” mode, allowing him to see the room and everyone around him. He signaled to staff for help and they quickly fixed his headset so we could move on.

I’m not sure we got the full breadth of information that we were presented with, given the distractions, but we got the general idea. It took a full half an hour afterwards for Becky’s brain to reset to the real reality and she continued to question whether walls and street curbs were real. That provided a great opportunity to stop for lunch, since she was temporarily a hazard to herself and others.

After lunch, we set out to get a look at the Olympic cauldron, which was relatively easily accomplished. We had hoped to tour the Orangerie, but reservations were sold out. Then we had thought to walk to Hôtel des Invalides and on to the Eiffel Tower, but found the way blocked by the bike racing course. So we took the metro to the Eiffel Tower and got some good pictures of it with the rings. Finding ourselves with yet another couple of hours to fill before our train to Lille, we got back on the metro to wander around Montmartre and take the funicular to the top (because we put the “fun” in “funicular”) and wind our way back down on foot before heading back to the hotel to pick up our luggage and catch our train.

Unfortunately, the vandalism to the train lines that’s been covered in the news impacted our route. Our train wasn’t canceled and departed just 15 minutes late, but arrived over an hour late. Luckily, our seats were comfortable and our feet appreciated the reprieve. We’re now settled in our VRBO for the night.

Today’s Highlights

• Seeing works by Monet, Manet, Renoir, Van Gogh, Toulouse-Lautrec, Rodin, among others
• Only wiping out one fellow tourist in our virtual reality tour
• Seeing the Olympic cauldron in person
• Seeing the Eiffel Tower with the Olympic rings
• Funicular
• Not getting pick-pocketed

Tomorrow’s Proposed Adventures

• Sight-seeing around Lille
• Men’s basketball: USA vs Serbia
• Hopefully not getting pick-pocketed