I gained an appreciation of art, especially visual art or paintings, from my time spent living abroad. For this, I will remain forever indebted to the fantastic Art Gallery of New South Wales in Sydney, Australia. It was here that my wife and I had our first taste of ‘Western Art’ and we were hooked. Not only do they have a good permanent collection housed in a fabulous building in an idyllic setting, but they organise wonderful exhibitions periodically that are well worth the cost of admission. Most importantly, admission to the general galleries is free.

We were also lucky, while living in Australia, to get the chance to see some of the greatest European paintings at an exhibition organised by the National Gallery of Art, Canberra. I still vividly remember standing in front of Vincent Van Gogh’s ‘Starry Nights’ and being moved by the intensity of the painting (fair to say I was Starry Eyed!). It was at this ‘Masterpieces from Paris‘ exhibition that I was really exposed to and intrigued by the works of Impressionist artists such as Monet, Seurat as well as others such as Degas and Gauguin.

While on a short trip to Chicago, I managed to take some time off to visit the Art Institute of Chicago where I was able admire more works from masters such as Van Gogh and Picasso.

We then moved to London where we visited The National Gallery. Unfortunately, I only visited once, not enough to form any lasting impressions.

The next highlight on our Art exposure was a visit to Paris. Yes, of course, we visited The Louvre and got a chance to admire Mona Lisa without any major crowds. What stood out for me though was the sheer scale of the museum. I would have loved to spend days there, but we only had a few days to see Paris and we had to move on to other sights.

The Musee d’Orsay is a wonderful museum. It’s of a size that does not overwhelm and sees far fewer crowds than the Louvre. Which means that one can admire its unbeatable collection of Impressionist paintings in peace and at leisure. And, of course, we saw the famous Clock.

One of the highlights of our time in Paris was definitely the visit to Musee de l’Orangerie and seeing Monet’s Water Lilies collection in the Oval rooms. An unforgettable experience.