Paris

A friend saw a write-up about the Monet collection at the Marmottan and recommended I put it on my itinerary for a trip to Paris I was planning in 2007. I was traveling by myself and not familiar with the 16th arrondisement, but I decided to give it a go. It was a bit of an adventure figuring out the right metro or train line to take but I managed to get to the right metro stop and found the museum with the help of a kind Frenchwoman who saw me pouring over a street map and offered her assistance in finding the museum--which is located at the far end of a city park. (Don't believe what you've heard about the rude and arrogant French; I've been the beneficiary of their largesse more times than I can tell you.) The museum itself has the ambience of a home--and is an unexpected location for the huge canvases of Monet. But the collection is comprehensive and amazing--sort of an exploration of Monet's progression as an artist during various stages of his life. During this same trip, I saw a second Monet exhibition at L'Orangerie but I was much more enthralled with the works and the presentation at Marmottan. I thought it was a special bonus to have discovered a corner of Paris I would never have visited otherwise.