Nice Pyramid, Pei!

Monday was our last full day in Paris, and it was time to take on... The Louvre.  We went into this task aspiring to see as much as we could given the that we had only one day to take in a museum that could easily take a week to experience.

There was a nice cafe on our block that we hit on the way to the Metro station.  A few lattes and hot chocolates later and we were all rarin' to go!


The Metro station  took us right to the Louvre.  As a matter of fact we deboarded underneath it!  A short walk up through the levels and we came out into the Place du Carrousel, looking up at one of I.M. Pei's most famous works, the Pyramide.  We already had tickets (we got the Paris Museum Pass, which paid for itself with just Versailles and the Louvre alone) but a line was already starting to form to get into the museum, so we hopped in with the crowd.  Soon an official looking man with a radio motioned to Chris and said he'd have to take the handicap entrance due to the stroller he had.  Chris said that we were all together, gesturing to the eight of us behind him.  The man said that was fine, and we all walked right in through the base of the pyramid.  No line for us today!  We came down an escalator and found the inverted pyramid.  The boys thought this was pretty cool.

The audio tours for the Louvre are pretty spectacular.  They are on a Nintendo DS.  That's right, for 3 Euro each kid got their own DS on a lariat and a headset.  It was like a GPS for the museum, complete with interactive images and maps.  Oh, the boys were so cheesed!  Yes, they did look up from them once in a while.  As a matter of fact they were able to surf around in their DS to other parts of the museum and see other works.  Van found one with a pirate he wanted to see, so he and Josh went off to find it!  Le doge de Venise

We started our tour into the Denon Wing on the lower level, through the Salle du Manege to the Gallerie Daru where we saw many Greek and Hellenistic sculptures from the Borghese collection (the Borghese Museum in Rome was one of my absolute favorites - no surprise I enjoyed this), including The Gladiator, c 100 BC.

Through these large, bright rooms was a wide staircase leading to one of my must-see items:  Winged Victory of Samothrace.  Oh, she was beautiful.  We all puttered around her for a while, taking in the angles and the gorgeous space.  We even found one of the Arago Rose Line markers here!

Next stop:  The Mona Lisa.  There wasn't too bad a crowd in front of the most famous of Italian ladies.  She was smaller than I expected, but just as lovely.  The picture was behind thick plates of glass and two barriers keeping people well out of reach.  However, imo, it also keeps you far enough away to keep you from enjoying her subtleties and details.  Guess that's what the gift shop is for, eh?  Wes and I got right up to the barrier to see her.  Van and Josh hung back, listened to the DS and checked out the other paintings in the room.  Oh yes, she's not the only thing in the room!

With so much excitement around the Mona Lisa we all needed to refuel.  Rather than leave and come back we stopped at the Cafe Denon, a gorgeous landing in the middle of a grand stair not far from the Italian paintings of the Grande Gallerie, our next stop.    It felt good to sit down, talk about all we'd seen thus far and enjoy the beautiful space around us.

Musee de Louvre

Moving into the Grand Gallerie I started to see some familiar names and images, Fra Angelico (Angels in Adoration), Botticelli (Madonna and Child with Young St John the Baptist), Ghirlandaio (Old Man and Young Boy), and of course Raphael and Leonardo.  Da Vinci's Madonna on the Rocks was a stunner for me.  Van really enjoyed Arcimboldo's Four Seasons -  portraits made of seasonal vegetation.  Beyond the Grand Gallerie we found the lovely, Venus de Milo and a number of other Greek and Roman statues, including a number of pieces from Hadrian's Villa.

About this time we needed to make the call to move on to another wing or to call it a day.  We decided on the latter.  Coffee was needed for the big set and the smaller ones could use some running space.  The boys did amazingly well in the museum!  I was impressed at how much they took in, Van in particular said how much he enjoyed it and wants to go back to see "more art" someday.  This momma's heart just swelled hearing that!

Below the Louvre is a mall.  No joke.  A mall.  Lots of gift shops, clothing and art stores and more!  We hit a few, got some trinkets (it was our last day in Paris after all) and headed back up to the surface to say "au revoir" to a wonderful museum.

Colonnes de Buren

Walking along the Rue de Rivoli we found a great place for coffee and a treat, Cafe Nemours.  We gathered a few tables together, ordered hot chocolates, croissants and a few lattes and relaxed a bit.  There was a street performer near by the kids loved, a man making colossal bubbles!  Chris had explored around a little and it turned out the cafe was part of the Palais Royal, so we wandered back through a short tunnel and found a great area for the boys to run around in!  An installation called Colonnes de Buren.  There were lots of other families there, a dog or two, some soccer balls being kicked around, no traffic to fret over and now two moms who were siked to just let their kids be kids for a bit.

The Bayons had had a date night Sunday and Monday night it was our turn.  Josh and I had read about a little place called Chez Paul not too far from our apartment.  We got there right as dinner started and got a table right away.  The staff was super nice, happy to speak English (although we tried to use as much French as we were able) and very helpful with the wine and menu.  Our server and Josh picked out a great bottle of wine and we started with a plate of... wait for it... escargot!  They were delicious, not gonna lie.  For our entrees we each had the Steak au Poivre with potatoes which was just exquisite, and then the cheese plate to finish our 2nd bottle of wine with.  It was a great experience, and both of us are very grateful to our friends for allowing us to go out.

Chez Paul

The next day we'd head north to the UK but tonight we enjoyed being Parisian for just a little while longer.