No Photos Please!

Before we start on today's blog I just have to fill you in on our scrumptious dinner last evening. We went to a little Italian place (I know, you thought I was going to say French) and took advantage of their Formula dinner. A formula is an appetizer, main course and dessert for a set price.

We each ordered different things and our appetizer's were delicious. Jim's appetizer of tomatoes and mozzarella had the most beautiful rose made out of something. It looked like paper, you know the kind of thick, nice paper that you tear the edges and it looks old? Well that's what this rose looked like in a lovely shade of pink. I said it couldn't be paper, they wouldn't put that in the middle of his tomato dish. We sat there trying to figure out what it was but I just had to find out so I took the tiniest nibble and was so surprised to find out that it was a rind of a grapefruit or orange (Jim says orange, I say grapefruit). It was the thick white part of the rind without the outside skin and it was formed into a rose shape. Mystery solved! Next came the main course; I ordered lasagne and Jim ordered Pasta Carbonara. If you recall our 2nd night here in Paris Jim ordered a pizza and an easy over egg came in the middle of it. His bowl of pasta came complete with the cutest half egg shell with just a raw yolk right smack dab in the middle! We looked at each other and tried to figure out what the heck we were supposed to do with it. I started to laugh and we decided that he was to empty the yolk into the middle of his hot pasta, stir it up and there was his dinner. The waiter came by after, removed the shell from the table like it was no big deal, and Jim ate up! The dinner was delicious and we didn't get sick!

You might have been wondering if we are ever going to see the Louvre. Today was the day! We have been waiting for the crowds to get smaller and there are certain days that are better to go than others. We decided that we would walk to the Louvre because it was only a mile and it is so nice out and so much nicer on top of the streets than under them!

Upon arriving at the Louvre we were overwhelmed at the sheer beauty of this Palace. It is U-shaped with fountains everywhere. In the middle of this huge courtyard is the controversial glass pyramid. This pyramid was built in 1989. Many Parisians hated it at first just like they used to hate the Eiffel Tower. It serves as the entrance to the Louvre and makes a very impressive entrance at that! We got in line and imagine our surprise when we could walk right in with only a brief pause at the security checkpoint! This was great because we thought for sure that there would be thousands around (just you wait). We got out our handy little guidebook and started on our tour.

The Louvre was the King's palace before Versaille was built. It has 3 basic wings; the Denon Wing, the Sully Wing and the Richelieu Wing. In addition to housing some of the greatest masterpieces of all time, it also has artwork and decor from the King's era. Imagine a Palace so great and grand, and then add Michelangelo, da Vinci, Ruben, Raphael, and Greek statues of every kind to the mix and you can see why the Louvre is thought of as the greatest and largest museum in the Western World.

Our first stop was the Pre-Classical Greek statues from 3000 B.C. Behold these are the first Barbie dolls in existence.

Next on our stop was Venus de Milo (100 B.C.) but she had been moved! Tell me, how does one move a statue with no arms? We searched and searched for her and finally found her (they are redoing her resting place), about 2 floors up and over. Now we found the crowds! So many people were gathered around that we could hardly get close. People were standing in front of her and getting their pictures taken. I wanted to politely tell them that they were a far cry from the Venus but I kept my mouth shut. Finally we found a break in the crowd and Jim got a picture or two of her.
We went back to our guide and then found the beautiful Winged Victory (190 B.C.) A sidenote to the Winged Victory: one of her hands with an outstretched finger was found in 1950 (100 years after she was discovered in Turkey) in Turkey. When the French negotiated with the Turkish government for the rights to the hand and considering all the other antiquities the French had looted from Turkey in the past, the Turks thought it was only appropriate to give France the finger!

We then headed for the Grand Gallery. This part of the palace was built in the 1500's to connect one palace to another. Now it displays much of the Louvre's Italian Renaissance art, aka the Mona Lisa! Of course this is where you can find other da Vinci's, Raphael, and sooooooooo many others.

We are trying to appear as though we are interested in all of the art work but basically we just want to find the Mona Lisa. We walk down the long gallery and she's not there. We check out our map and realize that we had passed her mid-gallery! In our nonchalence, we didn't see the signs pointing to her so we now turn back around and head straight for her. We thought the crowds were bad at Venus---this was terrible. Of course there are ABSOLUTELY no pictures allowed but everyone was flashing away. The Museum guards were in full force trying to keep camera control in check and going around yelling "No Photos Please"! Of course she was
worth every minute that we got to see her but never got up close and personal as we would have liked. As you can see our camera seemed to have a mind of its own as it took a couple of pictures of her without our knowledge!

From there we went and saw two of Micheangelo's slaves and then took a lunch break on a terrace of the Louvre overlooking the Pyramid.
After lunch we decided to visit the Richelieu Wing and saw the precursor to the Ten Commandments: the Law Codex of Hammurabi, King of Babylon (1760 B.C.) This 8 foot black basalt stela lists 282 laws. A couple of the laws are inscribed here (reading right to left): #1 if any man ensnare another falsely, he shall be put to death, #57 if your sheep graze another man's land, you must repay 20 gur of grain and #218 if a surgeon who bungles an operation shall have his hands cut off!

We saw many of Sargon II artifacts. Well you really can't call the 30 ton, 14 foot alabaster Winged Bulls artifacts! We visited the Flemish artists but by this time, I was pretty well cultured out as was Jim and we decided that we had seen most of 2 wings of the Louvre, the other would have to wait.

I feel that I have seen enough nudes to last me a lifetime! Between the Louvre (ancient world to 1850), the Orsay (1850-1914) and the Pompidou (20th century), we feel that we have covered quite a bit of art history while here in Paris. So much so that I don't know if I can see another museum for awhile!!!! Print this post