Day 3 Thursday June 19, 2014 Paris

The Louvre.  How does one describe actually seeing the Mona Lisa, or The Venus de Milo…in person?  We arose early and walked twenty minutes to the Louvre Museum before it opened.  We had heard the security lines were long so it was better to get there early. The building is massive.  We walked through several passages until we entered the main plaza. Just seeing the famous (or infamous) glass pyramid, was amazing! But, we walked on past this main entrance and followed a suggestion to use an underground entrance.  It worked like a charm.  Getting the tickets was bit of a hassle, but luckily, Patti is a great Internet researcher, so she got tips on where to get them and how which helped us skip some of the longest lines.

One could spend days or weeks looking at every wonderful thing they have there.  We have had a great time.  We knew the crowds would build at the Mona Lisa so we went there first.  Now she is behind bullet proof glass in a climate controlled chamber but she is still amazing.  We spent several hours wandering and seeing such amazingly famous pieces of art. 

We had both expected that we would focus much of our time on seeing paintings.  There were so many to see.  We surprised ourselves that we spent more time seeing both famous and not so famous statues.  Of course, this included the Venus de Milo.  There were so many incredible Greek and Roman statues and two by Michelangelo.  Wow!

We took advantage of a tour in English, learning more about some of the 35,000 pieces of art they have on display.  Some of the pieces were just breathtaking.  And some were really thought-provoking.  They had at least a half dozen paintings by various painters of the Virgin Mary breastfeeding the baby Jesus.  We realized that we have never seen images like these.  Patti just Googled this and found that there are dozens and hundreds of these online.  How come we have never seen this before?

This museum was just stunning!  Each room had something else wonderful to explore.  We were so full by the middle of the afternoon….knowing that we had only tasted a small part of this fabulous museum that was first started in the 1100’s.  Stunning!

We left the Louvre and walked through one of the best parks in Park, Jardin des Tuileries.  It is connected with the Louvre, and filled with people enjoying the day, their family, and art.  We strolled along soaking in PARIS…wow!

We tried to go to another of the premier art museums, Orangerie Museum.  Unfortunately, we arrived just after the sale of the final ticket.  Not today!  However, we went to our faithful travel Bible, Paris by Rick Steves.  We checked out which museums were open late on Thursday evening.  We found we were very close to another museum, Orsay, which focuses on the Impressionist.  We saw Rodin, Monet, Manet,  Pissaro, again, each time you turn around, wow!  Astounding, there is not words.

We had dinner at a lovely genuine French sidewalk café,  savory the amazing delicious food that you just can’t get back home:  mashed potatoes with grapefruit mixed in, duck cooked with peaches….delicious!!!

Then we walked along the Seine to catch our boat for a late evening boat ride down to see the Eifel Tower.  We got on the boat with about one hundred people and heard a bilingual English/French tour of Paris’ Top 20 sights.  It was romance at its best.  The sun doesn’t set until nearly 10:30, so dusk was just coming.  There was a special bridge that they said granted lover’s wishes if they kissed when they went under it.  We did, and we’ll let you know if the wishes came true.  We walked back to our apartment, floating, but exhausted.  Dick’s pedometer told him we had walked over 14 miles.  No WONDER we were tired.  This is likely to be the longest amount of walking we will do on the whole trip, and we did it!  We fell into bed, having greeted Mary Beth and her daughter, Tina, who will be staying with us in the flat.  They had a terrific day, and were in bed having just watched some great World Cup Soccer.  The team is beginning to assemble. And Paris is quite a place to gather.

I look to the right as I cross the bridge and smile to see the tip of the Eiffel Tower soaring over rooftops in the distance on the other side of the river. I've seen it in photographs a thousand times, but seeing it in person for the first time that reminds me that I'm really, truly here, thousands of miles away, across an ocean from home.”
―  Kristin Harmel, The Sweetness of Forgetting