October 3, 2001 : Musee du Louvre
Originally on this day I wanted to go to the Arc du Triomphe and the "mostfamous boulevard in the world" -- Champs-Elysees -- but that meant stayingoutdoors all day, and today was very overcast... so I decided to go to theLouvre museum instead, staying indoors all day.
Louvre is the largest museum in the world... If you can imagine a museum thelength of 2 golden gate bridges, as wide as an 8-lane interstate freeway, and 4floors all full of artwork and sculptures from around the world.... that'sroughly how big it is! Luckily for me on this day the museum was open late --that's one thing, every museum in Paris is open late one day of the week, andtoday was Louvre's turn.... as it turned out I needed all the extra time I could get for this one!
Again, this was also fantastic... dazzling.... breathtaking... look up thosewords in the thesaurus and add on all their meanings over here.... Except forone particular piece of art. More on that later.
There are Italian, French, Egyptian, Greek, German, even Sumerian/Mesopotamiansculptures, paintings... so many of them! And the Italian paintings from therenaissance era are HUGE -- occupying the whole wall in many cases, some as bigas the front of my house!!!
Dazzling.
Then there was this one particular hallway -- called "Italian RenaissancePaintings" or something like that.... about 400-500 feet long would be myguess, full of paintings so big that my camera couldn't take the whole paintingin one picture from where I was standing! I think this was the highlight of thewhole museum... the paintings are just enourmous, and there are more on theceiling even... Just beautiful!
This hall leads up to a small room... a small, dark, crowded room... and inthat tiny little room, is a tiny little painting -- the only one on the wholewall. That's the Mona Lisa, and is probably the most disappointing piece in themuseum - maybe because I was expecting a lot, maybe because I had been dazzledby the hallway I just walked from, but I cannot figure out what's the bigdeal about that painting... there are so many others in the museum which areten times better!
Ok I'm rambling again, sorry.... onward...
Surprisingly I finished the whole museum in 1 day (thanks to it being openlate).
Today was a big walking day.... must have walked about 7-8 miles total allday..... so after that I just went back to my hotel and relaxed...
It did not rain the whole day!
I've organized the pictures below into 4 categories: the museum buildings and surrounding area, a few rooms in the Richeleau Wing called "Napolean's Apartments", Paintings, and Sculptures:
Museum views:
Arc de Triomphe du Carousel
Denon Wing: Home of the Mona Lisa
At Jardin des Tuileries
One small section of the Louvre museum!
I.M. Pei's Glass Pyramid...
Glass Pyramid
Above the main lobby
View from Richeleau Wing
Napolean's Apartments:
 Ceiling shot |
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 Empress Josephine |
Paintings:
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Sculptures:
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 Hammurabi's Code |
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 Michelangelo's "Slaves" |
 Michelangelo's "Slaves" |
 Venus De Milo |
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 Seated Scribe (Ancient Egypt) |
