In Louvre in Paris
July 16th, 2015
Early at the Louvre
The crowd was more interesting to watch than the Mona Lisa
We woke early and grabbed some espresso and croissants before heading to the Louvre. We probably arrived by 8:30 and a line had already formed. We entered and decided to immediately try to find the Mona Lisa before the huge crowds gathered around it. We thought we were off to a great start as there was nobody around us, until we realized we were in opposite wing of the Louvre! The plus side was that no one was where we were, so we had this wing of the museum to ourselves for a brief time. We began to realize where the Mona Lisa would be as soon as we saw the crowd again. We saw the painting through the crowd and Chuck much more enjoyed the version he saw at the DaVinci Museum in Florence, life sized and up close.
We're alone in the Louvre
We then wandered around the museum for a few hours. By the time we were ready to get lunch, we realized we had only really seen one floor of one wing of the entire museum! Walking out we walked through the Renaissance and Egyptian wings and wished we could have had more time to explore. After a quick lunch of baguette sandwiches and lemon cake, we headed off for more sight seeing.
We headed back to St. Chappell that we had seen from the outside yesterday. The chapel has beautiful, tall, colorful, stained glass panels covering nearly the entire church and the church was specifically built to hold the Crown of Thorns, not on display of course. Then, we went next door to the Conciegerie, which used to be the prison. This is where Marie Antoinette was held and we were able to see where her cell was, along with its original wall paper.
Arc de Triumph
After a long day of checking out sites, we decided we still had room for one more so we headed to the Arc de Triumph to watch the sunset. Once we walked up the many stairs to get to the top, we enjoyed views of the sun setting against the Eiffel Tower as it began to light up, whilst the insane traffic circled us below!
The Eiffel Tower says hello from the Arc de Triumph
