The rue de Lille was once the central lane of the garden belonging to Henri IV’s famous queen, Marguerite de Valois. When she died in 1615, the property was sold off in lots, and became the private mansions.During the 19th century, between 1810 and 1838 there were two buildings constructed on the site of the future Orsay station: the Cavalry barracks and the Palais d’Orsay.

In 1871, during the Paris Commune the entire neighborhood was burnt down. Nothing was done with the ruins of the Palais d’Orsay until the French government gave the Orleans railroad company the land to build a central terminus station. This was completed in time for the World Fair on July 14th 1900.

From 1900 to 1939, the Gare d’Orsay served as a hotel to numerous travelers as well as being popular with political parties for banquets and meetings. After 1939, the station had become too short to take the longer electrical trains.

During the Second World War the Gare d’Orsay was used as a mailing center for sending packages to prisoners of war, then as a film set and as an auction house.

General de Gaulle held the press conference announcing his return to power in its ballroom (the Salle des Fêtes), and the hotel finally closed its doors on January 1st, 1973,

The station came under consideration for demolition and to be rebuilt as a hotel and it is only the nineteenth century architecture that saved the building which was then listed on the Supplementary Inventory of Historical Monuments on 8th March 1973.

The building was now guaranteed not to be demolished, so in 1975 the Direction des Musées de France considered placing works of art from the second half of the 19th century.

On the 20th of October 1977, there was an official decree to build the Musee d’Orsay as an initiative of President Valery Giscard d”Estaing

In 1978 a civil commission was created to construct the museum and the building was classified a Historical Monument.

The new museum was inaugurated on December 1st 1986 by the President of the Republic, François Mitterrand and finally opened to the public on December 9th.

And what a magnificent job they made of it. The building is as breathtaking as the works of art that it houses.

We awoke on the second morning in Paris to the sound of the street cleaning machines. Funnily enough we had been told that Paris was a dirty city. Well we certainly did not see any signs of the things we were told to expect.

If anything the city was sparkling clean and the street cleaner came down our street with certain regularity every morning at around 5:30am.

We breakfasted in the little restaurant in the basement of the hotel, on ham, a variety of cheeses croissants, cereal, fruit and juices. Everything was fresh and unpolluted with preservatives. What a lovely change to smell and taste fresh food.

Then off we set to the Musee d’Orsay.

You can see the old railway clock in the background. More on the history of the Musee d’Orsay to come.

There is so much to do and so much to see in Paris. The place is just a treasure trove of art, culture and magnificent architecture.

We were wise enough to buy the museum passes before leaving Australia, so we had priority access to the Louvre and Musee d’Orsay.

Having the pass allowed us to walk past the very long queue of people waiting to get into the Louvre, we went straight to the head of the queue.

Now we know how the celebrities feel when they can bypass the queues that stretch for blocks, and walk right to head of the queue and be allowed in straight away to venues.

The Musee du Louve of course is totally awesome with around 35,000 works of art housed within it’s stunning architecture.

The Louvre has been an integral part of central Paris since the 12th century. From its days as a fortress it was transformed in a modernized dwelling for Francois 1 and later the extravagant palace of Louis XIV.

The Louvre was turned into a museum in 1793.

The walls are adorned with absolutely enormous paintings of battle scenes, many of them are  in beautiful gilt frames.

The painted ceilings are just breathtakingly magnificent. As you can see I am going to run out of superlatives for this blog.

This is the marble courtyard which is full of fantastic statues.

Unfortunately my picture of the Mona Lisa didn’t turn out as well as I would have liked. The picture is behind glass and as I am short, getting the picture over the heads of taller people was a bit tricky. Still we were just so happy to be in the Louvre in Paris anything else that happened was a bonus.

Both of us are fascinated by the Egyptian mummies and we went to see the exhibition when it was in Canberra earlier this year. (2007). Memories of our time in the Louvre came flooding back.