Petit Palais

Yesterday, I visited the Petit Palais, one of the many beautiful buildings around Paris built for the Universal Exposition of 1900. It's situated right across the street from the Grand Palais (trust me, they're both adequately large) which focuses more on temporary exhibitions (ie: where I saw "La Melancolie"). The Petit Palais is basically the Louvre and the Orsay in a nutshell, covering everything from Greek red-figure pottery to medieval and lots of 19th century art, such as pieces by Monet, Cezanne, and plenty of lesser-knowns. While the collection isn't quite as prestigious, it's also not an overly imposing trip such as going to Louvre is (tonight will be my 9th time, I'm checking out the new Ingres exhibit, and I still feel like a novice there). It's also free access to the permanent collection, which is a breath of fresh air. You'll mostly have to jockey with a bunch of nicely-dressed old people if you go during the week. I'd reccomend above all because of it's location. You pop out of the Champs-Elysee Clemenceau metro stop and you see Les Invalides across the river, and the two palaces right next to eachother in front of you. You're also a brisk walk to the Louvre past Place de Concorde and then through the Tuileries ( I know because the traffic on the #1 line was "perturbé" once and I had to run there for a class).