The countdown until we leave is on... only 3 more days. :(   I can't describe how sad I will be to leave, yet I'm ready to be home. I seriously can't take much more of walking miles and miles and climbing hundreds of steps per day.

To ensure we miss NOTHING, we visited 4 museums before 3PM today! The Musee Marmottan is the art collection of Paul Marmottan who donated his home and his art to be a museum. This has the largest collection of Monet paintings in Paris. It is a beautiful mansion set on a park and the art is displayed beautifully amidst furnishings, so it really is like being in the home of someone who has a fabulous art collection. After being in Giverny yesterday, seeing Monet's work today was even more moving. They have a pair of his glasses that show how bad his eyesight was. It gave me goosebumps to think of how hard it must have been for him near the end. And he still turned out masterpieces. Incredible...

Then we went to the Baccarat Museum, which, of course, is all about crystal. It is a very elegant setting, with a red carpet that sparkles, leading you up the steps, while the biggest chandelier I've ever seen slowly rotates above your head. There was a huge ballroom with several chandeliers and it reminded me of the ballroom in The Sound of Music. It made me want to spin and twirl, which I did because no one else was in there. :)

Then there was lunch. Oh my. We had the plat du jour which was basically many layers of thin sliced potatoes with ham and cheese in-between (think au gratin) plus a green salad. It probably weighed a pound but of course we didn't leave a bite. Dessert was included, so we shared a lemon tart and an apple tart. Nithng was keft of those either! We can't believe that each meal is better than the next, but it is.

On to museum #3 which was a free modern art museum. Several Picassos and Modiglianis so it was worth the walk. And they had an elevator. Praise Jesus. Really done with all the steps.

Final stop, the Yves St. Laurent museum, which is in his design studio and contains a collection of his clothes, accessories and movie clips about him and several of his fashion shows. It was small but wonderful.

Tonight was more neighborhood exploring and pizza for dinner. More of the stores in the covered shopping arcade were open tonight, and they are really quaint, old-fashioned specialty stores. The street is also lined with vendors selling sausages, cheese, bread and olives. After a quick pizza for dinner, we could barely make it home we're so tired. I think we're in a carb coma myself. It is really nice outside so I'm sitting on the balcony watching the sun begin to set and the people on the street below. It stays light here until about 10pm so it always surprises me how late it is. The traffic never stops, even in the middle of the night, but I leave the windows one all night anyway because the air feels so good. We won't have cool air like this at home until November so gotta soak it up.