Day 17 - The Louvre

We took the Metro to the Louvre this morning. We quickly learned that you have to be quicker about hopping on and off, as Michelle was left standing when the doors closed and all of us had boarded but her. Thankfully, Harry yelled to her that we would go to the next stop. So at the next stop we hopped off and awaited the next train to see if she was on it. We all cheered when we saw her and hopped on the train with her. Together again. Quick thinking, Harry! Good work!




Good heavens; the Louvre is huge! It began as a fortress in the 12th century, was later the palace of Sung King, Louis XIV, and has been a museum since the late 18th century. We were able to tour one wing today and a small part of another. That's it! You could easily spend two weeks in this museum if you were really into art.











Some of the most famous pieces of art I saw today were the Venus de Milo, the Winged Victory of Samothrace (which is surprisingly larger than I had anticipated), and the Mona Lisa (which is surprisingly smaller than I had anticipated).

I took a picture of a cute litte Irish girl in sunglasses. She was playing in the water in the fountain by the pyramid. She was so cute.

Click here to read more about the history of the Louvre and see some pictures of the artwork housed within the museum. Additionally, there is some interesting information about The Di Vinci Code (the Tom Hanks movie set at the Louvre) and the museum, and reality vs fiction.

After leaving the Louvre, we walked around, just taking in all the sights and sounds of the streets of Paris. It's an amazing city. Something I found shocking is that motor cycles can drive on the sidewalks! YES! You can imagine our surprise when we saw this for the first time! Paris seems to be very accomodating to cyclists. At one of the large round-abouts that had several roads connecting to it, I noticed that at the end of each sidewalk there was a large space cornered off just for bicycle and motorcycle parking (and there were loads of them!).

There are also many street cafes, and since the weather is so beautiful, sitting outside eating dinner and people watching makes for a perfect way to spend the evening.