Well we went back to the Louvre this morning to try and see the painting “View of the Grande Galerie of the Louvre” by Patrick Allen-Fraser that was in the History of the Louvre room that was closed Thursday.  Yesterday one of the attendants at the Information Desk told us that it would be open today, Friday.  He showed us a printed list that had a schedule of room closures for September-December.  Sue was smart enough to stop at the Information Desk again this morning (we were in the security line when the museum opened) before we bought tickets.  I would have bought the tickets without asking.  (You are getting the long story because we are on the train to Basel for three hours and I’ve got nothing else to do.   Another side note, we can hear a cat meowing that a lady has in a carrier on the train.)  A lady at the desk said that there is a daily list of closed rooms and that she couldn’t confirm that our room would be open.  So I asked when would the list be out, and she said in 20 minutes.  So we went to a Starbucks that is in the shopping mall that is attached to the museum underground.  After the coffee we went back and I asked the same lady if our room was open; she checked on the computer and told me that it was indeed open.  So we bought our tickets and went to the see the History of the Louvre rooms.  Fortunately they are very close to the ticket hall.  The History of the Louvre is in two rooms that are divided by the hallway that goes into the Sully wing, and yesterday the attendant told us that our painting was in the room on the right.  You know what’s coming don’t you.  We scanned every painting in the room and of course it wasn’t there!!!  There were quite a few similar paintings, as I guess painting the Grand Galerie must have been the thing to do.  Sue was ready to claim one as a substitute for the one we wanted.  So we went to the other room and I went right to the attendant and showed her a photo of our painting and asked if it was in the room.  And you are right, she said no it was in the Denon wing where we were yesterday!  Sue called my name because she thought she had found it, but again it was a very similar painting but not the ONE.  At this point we were sure we were screwed, but we kept looking because we were desperate and didn’t have any other choices.  Thankfully we found it!!!  So we hadn’t wasted our entrance fee.  We went back to the Gare de Lyon and had a French breakfast.  Sue had coffee with a baguette and croissant.  I had coffee and two croissants, plus I ate Sue’s croissant to make it three.  That has been our day so far, although the train did stop in Dijon, and Sue wanted to jump off and buy some mustard, but there wasn’t time.  We will see one painting in Basel this afternoon; I confirmed earlier this week by email that the painting would still be on display today.  That is it for now, but I may add more after we wander around Basel later today.

We arrived in Basel, Switzerland at 15:30, dropped our bags at the hotel and went to the Kunstmuseum Basel to look for #510.  We found our painting and much more.  This is really a remarkable art museum.  They have quite a collection.  There are works from just about every 20^th century artist and most of the Impressionists.  There are two rooms of Picasso paintings.  And there were very few people at the museum, so it was all good.  Sue’s cousin Judy told us about a painting at this museum: “The Dead Christ in the Tomb” by Hans Holbein the Younger.  This painting isn’t on our list, but it is a very striking painting.  Wikipedia says the Holbein used a drowned body from the Rhine as a model.  An attendant told us that a free public talk was at 18:30, and after the talk we could go to the brand new Albert Durer exhibition, also for free, and there was a Happy Hour after that.  So we stayed around to listen to two talks in German, just nodding our head as the attendant suggested.  Then we got to see the exhibit which was very cool.  We didn’t stick around for the Happy Hour.  Sue was hungry, all she had up to that point was half a baguette mentioned above.  We found a very nice Italian restaurant up the street for our hotel.  It was very good.  So now we are back at the hotel watching CNN because that is the only English station that we get.  Sue did see that the market was way up today so she splurged and took a Coke out of the minibar.  This is way over the top for her, almost as bad as taking a taxi.  Tomorrow we are off to Bern in the morning (1 painting and a neat clock) and then to Zurich (3 paintings and maybe 1 more).  The hotel’s wireless is very sloooow, so I don’t know if I’ll get this posted tonight.

Paris to Basel October 31 2014