Paris (24 May)
Today dawned grey and rainy. A perfect day to go to a museum. We were in luck! Not just any museum, but the most famous of all museums in the whole world: The Louvre!
Right across the street from the Louvre was a small but very cute looking market. Of course we had to walk around and look at everything!
At the Louvre we tried to have some sort of plan of attack – there is no way any one person can see everything at the Louvre in one day. Plus, at some point you do develop museum overload and get a little cranky.
First up was the Lower Ground Floor and the History of the Louvre/Medieval Louvre. I had no idea that they had the foundations from the original building from way back when. There was also a cool modern day exhibit throughout all the old ruins.
After that we had to find our way of the ground floor and up to the First Floor to see the Mona Lisa. Needless to say, we got lost. But along the way we saw some amazing things!
“Venus de Milo”
A mosaic floor that was discovered in Israel
Then finally, we found our way to the Mona Lisa. It actually was bigger than I thought it would be. But the Last Supper painting that was also in that room was HUGE.
(Photo by Kaija)
Chayton had a few questions about it, so we just sat on the floor in front of it and had a nice discussion about the Last Supper, Passover, Juda, Mary Magdalene, and why people are not tolerant of ideas that are different than their own.
After Mona, we found our way over to Napoleon III’s apartments. Of course we got lost first! We had to make it all the way across the plaza to a new building – but had to figure out how to do that while inside and bypassing several areas that were closed off. Finally, we found it.
Can I just say, these are absolutely over-the-top. It boggles my mind to think how the emperor could live like this – and I wonder what the common person’s house looked like.
Of course we couldn’t miss the upside down pyramid.
Slowly we found our way outside. Have I mentioned the Louvre is very confusing? 🙂
I was hopeful that we would find our artist outside the Louvre next to the river, where our bus tour had stopped a couple of days ago. But of course, the rain went from a drizzle to a down-pour. No one was out along the river selling their art – very sad.
Courtney stood underneath an archway while I took the children through the outdoor market one more time. Chayton has had a one Euro piece burning a hole in his pocket and hoped he could get something that he eyed earlier. Unfortunately this was a very tourist-y market and everything was a little over-priced. No new knick-knack. Then we all raced to go down into the Metro Station, quite wet and cold.
