On our 2nd day in Paris (Monday), we awoke to cloudy skies & a 60% chance of rain. We decided to do the Lourve that day. Everything we had read had said the museum opened at 9AM, when we arrived to the Lourve, we found a long line & an almost hour long wait in the cool, damp morning. We didn't see anyone going in or out of the Lourve, finally at 10AM the line began to move & we got inside. Once inside it was a quick line to get our tickets. We grabbed some cafe & pastries to start our day. The Lourve is a gorgeous facility in it's own right, so the priceless works of art inside seem to fit. A lesser building could not house this art! Michael is quite the art buff & had previously been to Paris when he was a young college man, so it was fun to see the art that he holds in such high regards. The Lourve had been a palace for the royalty of France, until Napoleon decided it just wasn't grand enough for him. Napoleon did however have several apartments in the Lourve, in which, he lived until Versailles was renovated to his taste. You can certainly see his influence in the Napoleonic apartments....they are over the top with gold! Because it was so rainy that day, the museum was packed. So I didn't get some photos of the famous pieces of art that I saw. For memories sake, I got to see the Mona Lisa, Venus de Milo, Suffering Servant, the Marly Horses from Louix XIV's gardens, Winged Victory was under construction but this sculpture is from 305BC, we also saw the Coronation of Napoleon from 1805--apparently in his 1804 coronation in Notre Dame, Napoleon snatched the crown from the hands of Pope Pius VII to place upon his own head, but this famous painting shows Napoleon crowning his queen Josephine...there is another of these paintings in Versailles. I loved the sculptures as you can see from my pictures. Due to the rain & the fact we wanted to see as much of the Lourve as we could that day, we decided to eat lunch in the museum. The cafe/bistro on the lower floor of the museum is great. I had truffle ravioli & Michael had a rabbit dish. Both were delicious, can you believe we had a gourmet meal in a museum cafe...well, I guess that is to be expected in Paris. We finished up at the Lourve & headed back to our hotel to get dressed for dinner. We ended our day by eating at a restaurant called Jadis. Jadis was in our guide book & is known for it's delicious traditional French food. I had duck breast & for dessert I had the "mystery of Jadis". Not knowing what I was getting was somewhat unnerving especially after the night before when I got frog eggs in my lobster bisque, but I figured it was probably ok to get a mystery dessert & it was. Hazlenut/chocolate rolled cookie filled with ice cream...yummy!
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| Cesear Augustus |
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| St. Michael defeating the devil |
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| this was famous also, it's from Assyria 8th century |
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| You can see the 4 Marly horses up on the pedestals |
Lunch in the cafe at Lourve
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| Creme Brûlée |
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| Napoleonic apartments |
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| Venus de Milo |
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| Michelangelo's Suffering servant |
Dinner at Jadis
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| The Mystery of Jadis |
One of the things I had on my list to see was the Eiffel tower at night...I saw it!
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