France Day 4:
Today we got up early and took the metro to the Place de la Concorde. This courtyard is smack dab in between the Arc de Triomphe and the Louvre. It's in the center of a VERY busy 6 lane street in Paris on the Right Bank. There were tons of people out and about today and the walk to the Tuileries Garden was anything but lonely. :)
We wandered throughout the garden in a HOT morning sun, admiring all the flowers and trees and pausing at the various statues and fountains. We finally made it to the Pyramid and easily passed by the long ticket lines with our museum pass (again, what a great investment!) and on into the museum.
The Louvre. WOW. This place is huge. I didn't even comprehend how huge it was until we got lost several times in the bowels of the building. We saw all the important pieces, which were just as breathtaking in real life as I imagined. Except the Mona Lisa. I wormed my way through the crowd to the very front to look at her, and they had roped off almost 10 feet in front of her. I've had better looks at her face in a book. What a rip off. :) In other news... The Venus de Milo is BEAUTIFUL, as is the Winged Victory.
After traipsing about the museum for about 7 hours, our feet were DYING. The crowds had started to wear on both of us, so we finished up by going to see the Egyptian displays which were TOTALLY worth the trip. They have an amazing collection of artifacts that are thrilling to see. After all was said and done, we still missed at least HALF of the museum... and a lot of the stuff we did see, we just had to glide by. It was intense and if I had a summer here, I'd make sure to go back and give everything it's proper due.
After our exhausting day in the museum, we walked out just in time to be caught in a rainstorm. I asked Tim to grab the umbrella from his bag, and he smile guiltily, admitting that he'd left it in our hotel room. We took cover under one of the arches and then waited for the rain to let up. As soon as there was a break in the clouds, we ran for the metro and zipped back across the Seine to our dinner at La Petit Chaise. It was a wonderful meal, although slightly marred by the fact that the restaurant was full of AMERICANS. LAME-O! ;)
We limped back home to soak our feet, and reformat our plan to see another museum tomorrow. I think we are going to take a break... spend a leisurely morning in a cafe and maybe do a little shopping. We need to give our tootsies a vacation!
More photos from our past two days HERE.
More to come...
We wandered throughout the garden in a HOT morning sun, admiring all the flowers and trees and pausing at the various statues and fountains. We finally made it to the Pyramid and easily passed by the long ticket lines with our museum pass (again, what a great investment!) and on into the museum.
The Louvre. WOW. This place is huge. I didn't even comprehend how huge it was until we got lost several times in the bowels of the building. We saw all the important pieces, which were just as breathtaking in real life as I imagined. Except the Mona Lisa. I wormed my way through the crowd to the very front to look at her, and they had roped off almost 10 feet in front of her. I've had better looks at her face in a book. What a rip off. :) In other news... The Venus de Milo is BEAUTIFUL, as is the Winged Victory.
After traipsing about the museum for about 7 hours, our feet were DYING. The crowds had started to wear on both of us, so we finished up by going to see the Egyptian displays which were TOTALLY worth the trip. They have an amazing collection of artifacts that are thrilling to see. After all was said and done, we still missed at least HALF of the museum... and a lot of the stuff we did see, we just had to glide by. It was intense and if I had a summer here, I'd make sure to go back and give everything it's proper due.
After our exhausting day in the museum, we walked out just in time to be caught in a rainstorm. I asked Tim to grab the umbrella from his bag, and he smile guiltily, admitting that he'd left it in our hotel room. We took cover under one of the arches and then waited for the rain to let up. As soon as there was a break in the clouds, we ran for the metro and zipped back across the Seine to our dinner at La Petit Chaise. It was a wonderful meal, although slightly marred by the fact that the restaurant was full of AMERICANS. LAME-O! ;)
We limped back home to soak our feet, and reformat our plan to see another museum tomorrow. I think we are going to take a break... spend a leisurely morning in a cafe and maybe do a little shopping. We need to give our tootsies a vacation!
More photos from our past two days HERE.
More to come...
posted by saucybritches at
5/14/2008 02:41:00 PM
2 Comments:
sounds like my louvre experience was near identical. me and lena were EXHAUSTED after several hours and agreed to tell everyone we had seen more than we did ;) also, i agree on the MOna Lisa thing and how beautiful the Venus de Milo was, one of my favs still...glad you're expectations were not let down!
I agree, the mona lisa is kind of a disappointment and the louvre is huge and exhausting (but also wonderful).
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