Where in the World?

We started off our last day in Paris by having an espresso and croissant near the Louvre. After we were fortified with the proper French nutritional supplements, we walked to the museum. The Louvre itself is quite impressive in scale. The buildings are enormous and go on for several city blocks. The entire collection has over 35,000 pieces of art. According to one of the guides, if you stood for 3 seconds at each piece of art, it would take you over 3 months (24 hours a day) to see everything. It’s hard to fathom. I like to call what we did in the Louvre, a running tour. We walked for about 4 hours and tried to see a little bit of things we liked including Italian, French, and Dutch paintings spanning several centuries. We also saw ancient Egyptian art and artifacts plus Mesopotamia and Levan cultures. We ran out of time to see the statue collection. That will have to be another trip.

Highlights for us included the Venus de Milo and Rembrandt paintings. The Mona Lisa was obviously a popular work and there were hundreds crowding around. Patience gave us the opportunity to stand near the painting and observe it from several feet away. I had always heard that the eyes of the Mona Lisa follow you no matter where you stand. I tried it from several angles and I have to say that the stories are true. I tried this with several other paintings and none had the effect that the Mona Lisa had. How did Rembrandt do that? I find that fascinating.

Finally, after our feet were complaining and our heads were packed full of art, we stopped in one of the Louvre cafes and had a late lunch.

We are now off to sacred ground which I will detail in the next blog post.