Storming the Louvre….

After breakfast, and touring the incredible beauty of the Luxembourg Gardens (and its beautiful palace – surrounded by all the wonderful statues) we were off to the Louvre Museum….taking full advantage of the light volume of traffic on the trains, because of the “holiday”.
All jaws dropped when we got our first look of the outside of the museum as we rounded the corner. It’s sheer mass, is one thing……it’s magnificence and beauty a whole ‘nother thing. We just stood in the courtyard, next to the I.M. Pei pyramid (which was new to all of us – since last visiting, many years ago) snapping photos and taking it all in. Stunning contrast between the modern fountains and the centuries old building.
Crowds were pretty thin (thank you Feast of the Ascension) - and we just walked right in to the lower level entry of the museum to buy our tickets and begin our TGV (Tour Grande Vitesse….as in: a very fast tour).
Seeing the Mona Lisa and Winged Victory were top of the list. So, we headed in the direction of the Italian Masters (signage inside the museum is great….as are the written guides/maps in many languages). Along the way we were awed by the sheer volume of magnificence that had been created over the centuries….and had all been assembled in such a beautiful and befitting place and way. Morgan was especially moved by the ceiling art – something that was another part of our day, later, at the Musee d’Orsay.

On our way to the wing that houses the Mona Lisa, we looked down into a courtyard where we saw lots of sculptures that appeared to be under renovation or perhaps in the process of being relocated. We joked that it appeared to be the Louvre equivalent of Amazon.com, maybe those statues were being shipped out to Cleveland and Houston, as part of a money-making online venture!

This is Margaux: The Louvre was awesome!!! What I’ll remember the most about the Louvre was how huge it was, we only went in one wing and that is a separate museum in itself. Another thing I will remember is a room near the Mona Lisa had sculptures that were built into the wall touching the ceiling. The room was gorgeous!!! The sculptures looked so realistic it was incredible, except for the fact that they were white.