One suggestion: If you have anyone in your party with a legitimate disability you can get immediate access by mentioning it to the guard at the entrance. My wife had a leg brace and no questions were asked. We had been rebuffed twice earlier when we did not mention the disability.

FYI: Someone at the Grand Palais said 8 to 10 p.m. on Friday nights is a good time to try to gain entrance. We did not have to do so but I pass it on for what its worth.

Oh, no! Sold out? Through the end date? Oh, I'm sick about that. I tried buying a couple of weeks ago and couldn't get anything to go through because of the phone number part. I should have tried a little harder.

Very sad face.

Ah, just received a reply from the museum that online e-tickets are sold out. So, we can wait in line for same-day tickets at the museum. Good to know that we still have a chance to see it albeit a heckofa wait in line, I'm sure.

sympathetic sad faces all round, beach girl.

good luck with the queue!

We have just returned from paris and can recommend this: arrive at 8:30 am or even a tad earlier). We waited under an hour. And then spent 4 hors in the exhibit. (Time included stop in the cafe for coffee and seeing the Monet film -- very good -- in French.) They apparently let in the people with tickets, the people with Sesame passes, then, before the next time slot opens (in our case 9:30) they start letting in the waiting line. They let in about 30 of us.

If you want to get Sesame tickets (it can be worth it if you want to see the France 1500 exhibit too -- or return to Monet) the best way to get them appears to be to go in the France 1500 door (no line -- or very short) and buy the Sesame tix at their own dedicated desk inside. Then return to the Monet entry area.

We also talked to several people who got in line at 8 pm and waited less than an hour -- but they had to hurry through the exhibit.

Is the website wrong?

http://www.monet2010.com/fr#/infos/

It says the hours are 10-10. Thanks!

I have a 9:30 am ticket....

Folks,great to hear that so many have been able to see the show. (A bit jealous too.) Just wondering if the exhibit includes two of Monet masterpieces form the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston - DANCE AT BOUGIVAL and LA JAPONAISE?
Maybe next time...

111op, 10-10 are the regular hours, but it's 9am-11pm around the holidays (Dec 18 to Jan 2).

Hi All,

We went last week.

There is a line for people "sans billets". It's about as long as the line for people "avec billets".

It was about a 2-hr wait - worth every minute of it.

The France 1500 exhibit is good, but will appeal, I think, to a narrow audience.

PS

There are so many works that one can differentiate between "good" and "not so good" Monet.

Ira

Good to know... I'm thinking of a spontaneous visit one long weekend this winter...

>>Folks,great to hear that so many have been able to see the show. (A bit jealous too.) Just wondering if the exhibit includes two of Monet masterpieces form the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston - DANCE AT BOUGIVAL and LA JAPONAISE?
Maybe next time...<<

Nay...they are both still on display at the MFA, which is currently celebrating the grand opening of the new wing.

Clarification: Dance at Bougival is actually Renoir. None of the MFAs many Monets made it to Paris, and I've seen La Japonaise at the MFA since the Paris exhibition started.

The France 1500 exhibit is good, but will appeal, I think, to a narrow audience.>>

care to elucidate, Ira? tell me more about the France 1500 exhibit!

we have bought sesame tickets on line so we can hopefully just whiz in.

Just to give an update and some hope to people who want to see this without a ticket, I saw this on Saturday and it was actually very easy. I happened to be in the area in the afternoon (around 3 pm), and there was a very short line then. My plan was to come back Sunday morning, but I was told that the line there could be long.

I ended up returning around 7:30 pm, and the line was short. I got in before I even finished a tart by Pierre Herme. Before I saw the show, I ate two Pierre Herme desserts inside Grand Palais.

So the wait was well under 10 minutes, I'd think, which was good, as it was on the chilly side in Paris.

I suspect that towards the holiday season, the lines might get longer. But certainly this was nowhere near what I experienced for Turner-Whistler-Monet a number of years ago or recent during more recent exhibitions when I had to wait for an hour or perhaps even more.

I am not sure what the critical reception have been like. I did like the show, but I think that Monet's work just seems a bit overexposed. There were a number of paintings I enjoyed. One memorable painting is one of a sunset that's in the collection of the Petit Palais that, if I remember correctly, I first saw at the Turner-Whistler-Monet show; on the contrary, as Marmottan refused to lend any paintings, the famous sunrise painting that lent Impressionism its name is not in this show.

One interesting section was the section on portraits. There was a very large painting lent by Staedel featuring people having lunch (if I remember right). And there were very large fragments from a "dejeuner sur l'herbe" from an ambitious painting Monet never completed. These would not paintings I'd have thought Monet would have done. About five paintings (?) of the Rouen Cathedral were paired with Lichtenstein's works inspired by them. Interestingly, if I understood correctly, Lichtenstein worked from reproductions of Monet's paintings and not from the actual paintings. I was unaware of this aspect of Lichtenstein's work.

The Marmottan is running a parallel show, which I didn't get a chance to see. I'd been to the Orangerie twice before already, so I skipped it.

Actually I'd recommend the Arman show at Beaubourg/Pompidou for those interested in modern art. I was not very familiar with Arman's work before, and I was very glad that I saw it. The other shows at Beaubourg were one on Nancy Spero and Gabriel Orozco (I skipped this one given my limited time, having seen this in MoMA already) and a long-running show on female artists that I'd partly seen in April. I also went to the Kertesz show at Jeu de Paume. This was nice though I'd been following Kertesz's work for a while.

Thanks for the other recommendations, 111op. We will be staying on Place Beaubourg this time, so I'll definitely go across the street to see those.

I think you said you're there around year end, so you'll be able to catch the show on De Stijl (or was it Mondrian)? It starts on Dec 1, I think.