'A Paris!

Today was quite a whirlwind of a day but so very much fun. Ben and I had decided the day before to try to get over to the Louvre early so that we could actually get in this time since we had heard about the long lines and since they had closed earlier than we had expected the day before. We woke up a little late, so we wandered over to the McDonalds for a spot of breakfast and hopped on le Metro.
We got to the Louvre with a solid 20 minutes to spare before the museum opened and we were right near the front of the line. We had almost no wait at all when they opened the doors, although I have never seen as much jostling as I have with the tourists in Paris. After buying our tickets, we decided to head straight for the Mona Lisa since that was likely to get crowded first. On the way, I made Ben stop at the Winged Victory of Samothrace. This is possibly my favorite piece of art that I have ever studied. It was even more magnificent in person. To give some impression of the impact of this piece, my art history professor, Dr. Sadler, once told us in class that when she first went to the Louvre, she saw the winged victory and was so overcome with awe that she fell down two flights of stairs and broke an arm and a leg. For a statue that's missing it's arms and head, that pretty good. When I was done ogling the art, Ben and I continued through the maze that is this museum over to see Mona. It was pretty cool to see it up close and we got there before the huge crowds had formed, but Ben and I were both left a little underwhelmed by the experience (for me, especially after Victory). We continued through the Italian, French, and Spanish painting, of which there were several hundred and which took up maybe 15% of the museum. On the way I got to see my Carravaggio and Valesquez, the latter of which I had actually seen in Atlanta when it was lent to the High Museum of Art last year. After that, we travelled over to Greek sculpture and saw the Venus de Milo. The skill in these artworks is just amazing. We saw art from most of the first half of my semester of art history. Along with all of those paintings, we saw ancient works from Egypt, Iran, etc. We barely got through a sliver of the museum, but I was exhausted after an hour and a half.

It took us a really long time to get out of the museum (it seems to have been designed to keep you in) but when we did, Ben and I decided to go on down to Notre Dame to see what was shakin' down there. Notre Dame is on the Ile de la Cite' (the Island of the City), which is the location of the original city, but is now just a tiny little island in the middle of the city. We went to the courtyard outside of the cathedral, but decided not to go in because the line was too long and we had already seen the inside of Sacre' Couer and really didn't want to part with our Euros, but we could wee some of the stained glass from the door. The whole thing made me really want to watch the Disney version of Hunchback of Notre Dame.
We got our fill of yet another Paris landmark and then decided to go down to the Pantheon. This was a cathedral built by Louis XIV (I think), but God was ousted in favor of Victor Hugo after the revolution, so it's less of a church and more of a big building with statues, paintings, and a crypt. Some of the most famous Parisians are buried at the Pantheon including, well, Victor Hugo of course, sharing a crypt with Alexandre Dumas. Marie and Pierre Curie, Voltaire, Rousseau, and a whole slew of political leaders as well. In the center of the Pantheon, there is a giant pendulum which the Earth rotates around once daily. Overall we were pretty pleased with this sight.
The Pantheon is located in the Latin Quarter (and yes, we passed the Sorbonne and yes it was huge), so after finishing up there, we wandered over to a Peruvian restaurant that was recommended in our guide book. This definitely fell into the foreign food in a foreign country criterion and I enjoyed it very much. It was the first time that Ben and I had eaten South American and Ben didn't care for it too much, but he made a valiant effort.
After lunch, Ben and I wandered over to the Palais du Luxembourg, which is know for it's gardens. The garden is full of these beautiful statues and has a pretty little pond in the center of the garden. They had little sailboats to rent that kids were pushing around the pond with sticks. We had intended to go to the public catacombs after the gardens, but apparently catacombs have their day of rest on Mondays, so we continued on to our next stops.
Ben and I hopped on the Metro and took it up to the Champs-Elysees. On the way we came across some musicians playing in the station.




We stopped by the Grand Palais and the Petit Palais, but didn't go in. Instead, we strolled up the Champs-Elysees. It was a little windy, but otherwise, our stroll was quite nice. I even stopped for a cup of espresso, because when you stroll up the Champs-Elysees, you should stop at a cafe. At the end of the avenue is a traffic accident just waiting to get started. Between twelve and fourteen streets collide into a roundabout that goes around the Arc de Triomphe without any lane markings! My favorite was watching this guy on a motor-scooter going full speed while texting - now that's talent! Ben and I stood under the Arc and admired all of the artwork and the sheer size of the thing. It was pretty cool, but we decided not to go up it since we went up the Eiffel Tower yesterday.
OK, so by this point, we were both totally pooped. We decided to head back to our hotel in Montmartre to take a nap.
For dinner, Ben and I went straight uphill to a lovely little bistro called Le Maison Rose that was recommended in our book. The food was excellent and I got to have creme brulee for desert. The atmosphere was perfectly 1920s Bohemian. Just call me Sommerset Maugham. They even had these really cute half size bottles of wine. It was all tres jolie.
That pretty much wraps up our super busy second day in Paris. Bon soir!