17Aug2008: Day 84: Louvre

We got up, checked out and went straight to the Louvre. We figured since it was just after 10am we'd have about 7.5 hours to spend in this GINOURMOUS place. What puzzled me was that when we got our parking slip it said that it was after 11am. We went to the restaurant areas first to find some breakfast and we asked someone what time it was...it was after 11am! Somewhere in crossing the English Channel...Yesterday....we lost an hour and had no idea until today! It was a good thing we found out as we would've missed our train through the Euro Tunnel back to England.

The restaurant area had many different cuisines to choose from and we ended up getting brunch type food (quiche and salad) and some muffins. Then we decided a plan of action..which was basically to at least see the most well-known works of art. We saw the Mona Lisa, which by the way, is a lot smaller of a painting than I expected, then to the Venus De Milo (Aphrodite), Nike (Winged Victory of Samothrace), The Wedding Feast at Cana, and many more. We rented audio tours and you could either put in numbers to give you information on the pictures or you can put in a tour. So we tried following a tour and found that frustrating. The place is so darn huge that we couldn't figure out where to start for the longest time. Then we couldn't follow it after we did find it. So we somewhat followed it to the best of our ability. We barely saw a third of the things in this museum. Some of the most amazing things besides the statues were the rooms that they were in. The ceilings had paintings and were very ornate or they were extremely long.

One nice thing that happened was that one of the "ushers" for lack of a better word, saw that we were in a bit of distress and he came up to see what we needed. We were only really looking to get out of where we were to get water for Makenna and he started to tell us where we could go to get some, but then he took us over to this cabinet and gave us a bottle of water, mind you, you're not supposed to eat or drink while in the museum section. We expressed our appreciation many times. Later, this same man saw us and he offered to take a picture of just Chris and I in front of Venus De Milo. He saw us yet again and said how we should make sure we see the Crown Jewels before we leave for the day.

Here on the right is one of the hallways that held a lot of the paintings

The painting above was from a ceiling. This place was just absolutely amazing. I was never a huge art-lover type of person but this was just all very awe inspiring. To be able to hear about some of the stories behind the paintings and to understand the meaning of them at the time they were done gave them a whole new light besides just being a painting.

We also saw many antiquities such as sarcophagus's, and a mummy, and Egyptian writing on tablets and that was just for that area. They also had roman artifacts and stuff from Iran, Iraq, etc. Like I said, we barely saw a third of the place, and we never got outside in the yards. If we get back here, which Chris says we plan on doing, we know we'll be coming back here for sure. The price alone was well worth it. Only 9 Euros and if you were 18 or younger, it was free!

We then debated/argued over dinner and hit the road to start heading back to the tunnel. We stopped for dinner along the way and it was Makenna's first Happy Meal. One of very few I hope. She rather enjoyed it though. We actually got to the train early enough to take an earlier train back so we got home by 10pm. All in all, it was a great trip and Makenna did really well. She only had one semi-melt down at the top of the Eiffel Tower yesterday, that I forgot to add, and the only reason I mention it is because she was flat down on her stomach on the platform (imagine walked on by all types of feet), and it was pretty gross and I had to drag her to get back up. But we knew she was tired and it was time for us to go anyways.