Paris Day 2: Trapped in the Louvre
We again woke up at 1 pm (but hey, that's only 7 am on our original time) and headed back into the heart of Paris. We had basically covered the Right Bank on Tuesday, so we got off the metro at Hotel De Ville and walked towards the Left Bank. We started our trip with some shots of the back of the Notre Dame:
awesome
We continued our walk to the Left Bank, looking for the Pantheon. Naturally, instead of actually looking for the Pantheon, we stopped at every patisserie we encountered. We had had pastries the day before, but let's be real, we're in Paris. The presentation is exquisite, even at a local patisserie. Here is a shot of my second of the day:
yum
It was a thing of beauty. The inside was filled with a delicious coffee flavored cream. I could have sat around and ate pastries all day, but I was pretty sure that I should see the sights. We finally made it to the Pantheon where many philosophers/thinkers are buried. Having little money, we didn't take the tour, but we did get some pictures outside!
thinking about life
I really felt like I could have taken a picture of every building we passed. The architecture was stunning. In the United States, our "old" buildings are a couple hundred years old. I'm pretty sure the Notre Dame was built in the 13th century! You just can't beat the elegance and intricacy of the work. We continued our journey to the Luxembourg Gardens, which are absolutely stunning. This is only a few blocks away form the Sorbonne, and I'll just say that those are some very lucky students:
wildlife
another museum we could only afford to take a picture with...still beautiful
We spent a while lounging by the pool in the middle of the park. We needed some rest. Somehow we had done this all in two days so far! We were also just trying to kill time before going to the Louvre, because it costs less on Wednesday nights (guide book suggestion). We spent some time wandering around the Left Bank, going into stores and drooling over more patisseries. I could have spent the whole day listening to the French speak. The language just flows. After much lounging, we made our way to the Louvre.
This was the section of the blog I knew would be the most challenging. Of all the things that I saw in my week of travel, and there were many amazing ones, the Louvre absolutely blew me away the most. We started by taking plenty of pictures with the upside down pyramid (being Da Vinci code fans):
not sure this is legal but whatevs
The Louvre is monstrous building, I can't even begin to describe how big. The second you get in there though, every sign points towards the Mona Lisa. I have to say, the Mona Lisa was a bit of a letdown. It's not a particularly big painting, pretty small in fact, and it's the only painting on a giant wall in the middle of a room. There are about ten thousand people taking pictures of it, so there is no way to really even get close. And to be honest, I have no idea why it is so significant. I think you have to know more about art to appreciate it. Here it is nonetheless:
good ol' Lisa
Having seen the single most famous piece of art, we were ready to really appreciate the Louvre. I have never seen anything like it. Every work was a masterpiece. The ones that impressed me most were the biggest ones. Thirty by thirty feet paintings that were just so perfectly created. Here are pictures of me with a few of my personal favorites:
very large painting + me
need to get me on of these
I've been to a few art museums before, but nothing will ever compare to this. We continued to the sculpture areas, and these also were astonishing. It amazes me that someone can be given a slab of stone, and make a statue out of it. The time, the patience, the skill, everything it takes to create something like that are incredible. Here a few of my favorites:
hangin' out with Venus
me + Athena= twins
can you spot the non-pharoah?!?
I have to say, I was very sad to leave the Louvre. We probably saw about 1/20th of the entire place. I need to go back, there is an entire half I never even stepped foot in and we were there for at least three hours! When it came time to go, we got really confused. In Europe, there is a sign with a little green man running to point towards the exit. Well we got to a point where the little green men were running straight at each other, and neither was running towards an exit, so it was pretty hopeless. We could see outside, we just had no idea how to get there!
really, really confused
Somehow we managed to make it out. That meant another trip to Monoprix! We got a bottle of wine for about twice the price of the night before (which was still less than 4 dollars) and then headed out for a nice dinner. We decided to go back to the nightclubs we had gone the night before, but the atmosphere was a little different. They only played French songs! Absolutely everyone knew the words except for us, it was a little awkward. We just danced around like fools until the morning light. Unfortunately for us, we also had a train to catch to Zurich at 8:24. So naturally we just stayed up right through and went straight to the train station! Here is us looking pretty fabulous at around 7 am, just back from Banana Cafe and on our way to Gare du L'est:
loving life
Zurich chapter coming up soon!
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