In Paris, It's the Summer of Museums

Musee du Quai Branly (51 Quai Branly, 7th arrondissement, 011-33-1-56-61-7000, http://www.quaibranly.fr) is open daily, except Mondays, 10 a.m. to 6:30 p.m., and till 10 p.m. on Thursdays. Admission is $10.75. Metro: Iena, Alma-Marceau, Pont de l'Alma, Bir Hakeim.

Musee de l'Orangerie

On the right bank of the Seine, in a corner of the sprawling Tuileries Gardens, the newly renovated Musee de l'Orangerie -- with its massive murals of Monet's ethereal water lilyponds -- is one of the most enchanting art museums in Paris.

The light-filled museum was built in 1852 as a greenhouse for the Tuileries Gardens. Step out of the summer heat and tourist mayhem, cross an interior bridge and enter a magical world of weeping willows and lily pads. Two cavernous oval rooms provide 360-degree panoramas of the views that became Monet's artistic obsession in the later years of his life -- the play of light on his beloved waterlily ponds. Each room contains four murals that stand 6 1/2 feet tall. If they were placed end to end, they would stretch nearly 300 feet.

On one horizon, the water reflects the lavenders and pale blues of a misty sunrise. Turn to the opposite horizon, and the hues intensify into the molten gold of a fiery orb dissolving in a brilliant pool of yellow water. In between, lilies seem to float on clouds and dreamy azure skies reflected in the water.

The museum, which served as a bunkhouse for soldiers on home leave during World War I, reopened in May after six years of work. Construction crews gutted its second floor and opened Monet's murals to natural light from skylights filtered through protective white gauze. The visual effect transports visitors to the ponds and gardens that surround Monet's home and studio in the village of Giverny outside Paris.

Because the murals were too large to move, workers encased them in giant boxes during the painting, drilling and blasting. The newly created galleries beneath the waterlily rooms include a small collection of works by Renoir, C?zanne, Picasso, Matisse and Soutine displayed in wide corridors and brightly painted side rooms.

While young children may not appreciate the subtleties of Monet's play of light and color on ponds, they certainly will be drawn to Andre D?rain's vibrantly colored harlequins and minstrels. In Rousseau's playful painting of a family on an afternoon carriage ride, try challenging your youngster to find the extremely odd little gray dog with his tongue hanging out.

If you haven't bought tickets in advance, the lines are long. But you couldn't ask for a better vista to pass the time. The gold dome of Les Invalides sparkles just across the Seine, the Eiffel Tower pierces the sky in the distance and the elaborate fountains of the Place de la Concorde splash nearby.

Musee de l'Orangerie (Jardin des Tuileries, first arrondissement, 011-33-1-44- 77-8007 ,http://www.musee-orangerie.fr) is open every day except Tuesday from 12:30 to 7 p.m., and until 9 p.m. on Fridays. Group tours are available by reservation only from 9 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. Admission is $8.25. Free entry on first Sunday of each month. Metro: Conco rde.

Petit Palais

The ornate Petit Palais reopened six months ago after a five-year renovation to expand its galleries, restore its interior gardens and rejuvenate its massive main-floor open spaces. The museum is a celebration of Parisian life and "a journey through art history from antiquity to 1900," according to its curators.

A subterranean floor of galleries has been added, which allows visitors to see 1,300 of the 45,000 works in the museum collection. Before the renovation, the museum exhibited only 800 items at a time.

But it is the airy, grand spaces of the main floor that make the Petit Palais worth the visit. Artisans have carefully restored its colorful ceiling murals and intricate Italian floor mosaics. The interior garden has been replanted with the same trees used when the museum was built in 1900, and craftsmen searched out the same quarries used by original builders to replace missing sections of stone on its exterior statues.

The gallery is filled with paintings of drunken Bastille Day celebrations of centuries past, magnificient statuary and exquisite porcelain figures, including a clockmaker's fantasy of an ornate clock surrounded by porcelain animals playing musical instruments.

Petit Palais (Avenue Winston Churchill, 8th arrondissement, 011-33-1-53-43-4000, http://www.petitpalais.paris.fr) is open every day except Monday, 10 a.m. to 6 p.m., and until 8 p.m. on Tuesdays. Admission free for permanent collections; tickets required for temporary exhibitions. Metro: Champs-Elysees-Clemenceau, Concorde.

You'll save yourself hours of heat and hassle if you buy tickets ahead of time online, or from any branch of the discount retailer Fnac or Galeries Lafayette in Paris. You sometimes have to pay one or two euros extra, but it's worth the convenience. Night hours are a great time to visit, as the crowds are usually smaller. Children under 18 are admitted free to all museums. Older students with a valid college or school ID are eligible for student rates.

Molly Moore is The Post's Paris bureau chief.