D'Orsay Cafe and Clock

Our outing today (with our friend Guenter, from Frankfurt) was to the Musée d'Orsay. By chance we met my cousins Walter and Joan, who had just arrived from the U.S. (we will have a scheduled meeting in a couple of days). We had lunch together in this café (really a restaurant) on the 5th floor, with its rather outlandish décor and the huge clock in the wall (reflected in a cubist sort of mirror on the left). I blipped another clock in the museum nearly 15 months ago.

The building was originally the Gare d'Orsay, a railroad station (thus the clocks), until it was converted to display the French governments impressionist and post-impressionist collections. Before that for many years they were in the Jeu de Paume--in a much more straightforward setting where I first saw them on my initial visit to Paris in 1958; I was utterly blown away by the experience, and ever since I've regretted that the paintings were moved.

A friend just emailed: I can't see a clock blip without thinking of Harold Lloyd in “Safety Last”