June 26, Paris: The Louvre

I am posting this with only a few pictures, because my pictures are still on my camera, scheduled to be uploaded tonight.

Day 2--our first breakfast in the B&B. Breakfast is verrrrry frrrrrrench. Orange juice, tea, milk, yogurt, granola (one with raisins, one with chocolate), fresh fruit, bread, croissants, butter, jam, and three cheeses. We all slept hard, but we are not yet over the sleep deprivation. Even without crossing seven time zones, getting only 3 hours of sleep takes a couple of days for recovery.

We opt for the Metro, since the delightful and amusing Batobus takes about an hour to travel from our location. We arrive at the incredibly convenient Metro station. "Parlez-vous l'anglais?" I ask the gentleman behind the glass. "Non!"

Sigh. "Je voudrais quatre billet de Louvre, s'il vous plait." "Quatre ticket?" "Oui. Au retournee, s'il vous plait." "Huit billets?" "Oui."

But there is a grand complication! A packet of 10 tickets is cheaper than 8! But I don't recognize the word for "packet." The man in the glass booth is trying to explain "cheaper" to me, which is not the problem. It seems to take forever, but it's really only about 5 seconds, and we are on our way.

The Metro exit for the Louvre drops us below the main courtyard of the Louvre, and into a shopping area with the pendant glass pyramid dropping from the ceiling and almost-but-not-quite-touching a tiny stone pyramide set in the floor. Unlike my confused recollection from "The Da Vinci Code," this pendant pyramid is NOT directly underneath the one in the courtyard. We have to walk several hundred feet to reach that portion of the concourse. It is beautiful. From below, the glass pyramid funnels bright light into the large marble floored courtyard. People are walking up and down a large spiral staircase, and a handicapped accessible lift rises through the center of the spirals.

There is a brief line to get checked through security, and we walk to the museum itself, heading first to the medieval foundations of the original fortress.

Then, it's off to the Egyptian rooms. There are three floors of Egyptian artifacts. Did you know that France "administered" Egypt for many years, notably during the height of archeological discovery? Some wonderful pieces ended up in the Louvre. Being the geek I am, I have a profound desire to mentally sort the collection by date of creation, date and location of discovery. The Louvre has seen fit to group the collection by theme--writing materials; food preparation; metal work; faience. Eventually I give up--it is hard to re-arrange an entire museum-worth of materials by one's self.

But the statues of Ahkenaten are truly wonderful. He has been a favorite of mine for years now, willing to be depicted as a distinct human being rather than as an abstract god.

Suddenly, what is this? It is the Museum of Charles X. Quick history refresher required--Louis XVI is beheaded, and the National Assembly rules France until Napoleon Bonaparte takes over and declares himself emperor. Once he is finally defeated and exiled to Elba, Louis XVI's brother rules as Louis XVIII, then a third brother rules as Charles X. It is this third brother who has inherited the Egyptian treasures acquired by Napoleon and he displays them in a series of rooms opened to the public. In good Bourbon style, of course, the opulence of the rooms themselves overwhelms the artifacts displayed, and suddenly it is perfectly easy to see the Louvre as a royal palace instead of a museum.


























Wow. How will Versailles compare? We immediately decide we do NOT need to hike over to see the portions of the Louvre which reproduces the apartments of Napoleon III.
































For some reason, the Crown jewels are off display although Charles X has a number of amazing bits of jewelry to substitute.

Brains are beginning to get full, so we head off to Italian painting.

And as we turn the corner, there is the Winged Nike of Samothrace.

















She stands alone at the head of a grand staircase, and we admire her. But what makes her so much more famous than any other statues? She's not nearly as old as the materials in the Egypt collection. There is a lot of information on her on the Louvre website, but I'm not able to convey much of that without the visual aids on the internet.

We enter Italian painting, and it is an embarrassment of riches. How do you even begin to look at all the amazing works on display? And how does the paint stay on the canvases when the air in the gallery is so hot and humid? Halfway down the gallery is a turn off to a separate room, where the Mona Lisa hangs in regal splendor.

She is much much smaller than I imagined. Really, she is of modest size, especially compared to the truly monumental canvases hung on the side walls. She is also almost impossble to get close to--hundreds of people are trying to take pictures of her, of themselves in front of her, of themselves reflected in the glass which covers the painting and the protective shield in front of that.

I just want to see what all the fuss is about. I mean, we've all seen Mona Lisa reproductions until we just can't see her clearly for all the accumulated cultural detritus. As close as I can get--which isn't really all that close--it seems like the "trick" is in the way the light strikes the dimensional paint. She alternately appears to be straight-faced, and smiling slightly. Even without moving, I can see both a smile and the absence of one. Sort of. All the glass and pushing and humidity and the smallness of the painting make it hard to see. So I extract myself as gracefully as possible and exit the room.































(Who is more mysterious? Mona Lisa, or Hannah Ross? You make the call.)

Pausing for a moment to admire a HUGE and lovely painting of Aphrodite, which I like much better.

Outside in the gallery are six other paintings by Leonardo, including the Dan Brown endorsed "Madonna of the Rocks" and the single Vatican commision of John the Baptist. Emily is with me, and she is tired, so we find a bench where we can put silly words into the mouths of severed heads, saints receiving stigmata, and pietas. It is clearly time for nourishment.

After a cafeteria break in the Richelieu cafe (did Richelieu really eat Quiche Lorraine with Diet Coke?) we seek out the Venus di Milo--the last of the Big Three attractions we haven't yet seen. On the way, we pass through the "Room of the Caryatids."































(This is Diana, not a Caryatid.)

This is a room of amazing marble statuary, including a sleeping hermaphrodite who appears to be napping on an air mattress from our basement, and a lovely sleeping woman. So, we ask, what makes the Venus di Milo so famous?

(Did we even bother to take yet another picture of the Venus di Milo? It appears we didn't, although I take the opportunity to teach Emily the word "callipygian."

Sure, the pose is unusual, but we can't determine that for ourselves, because all the statues we have seen are in unusual poses. It is a mystery, we decide, and head out to Notre Dame.