As you probably already guessed, I started my day out with…. An espresso and croissant on my way to the metro, and today headed to the Musee du Louvre. Before visiting the museum I had not realized that it was actually a castle/fortress that was built in the 1200’s and then rebuilt as a royal palace in the 1500’s, before eventually becoming what I felt like was the largest museum in the world. (I don’t know if that is true or not, but it definitely felt that way) My bunkmate Kyle from Texas was planning on visiting the Louvre today as well, so we decided to tackle the beast together. We started out with the antiquities, which was a great call. We wandered for about an hour and a half with our headsets through room after room of ancient Roman and Greek sculptures. The usual highlights here are Athena, the Venus de Milo, and the Winged Victory of Samothrace, which were absolutely amazing, but I equally enjoyed many of the other sculptures such as Diane the Hunter, Venus and Mars, Hermaphrodite (which oddly enough resembled Lady Gaga), and Hercules, amongst others.
Also in this area is a very large exhibit dedicated to Ancient Egyptian artifacts, which was also quite amazing. I quickly passed by a lot of things I had already seen while in Egypt like blocks with hieroglyphs, sphinxes, and such, but lingered around a couple of sarcophaguses which were originally in tombs that I had visited in the Valley of the Kings.
It definitely was a special treat for me to paint a picture for Kyle of what the inside of the tombs were like where these giant sarcophaguses had come from, as well as for me to be able to imagine those empty tombs filled with them. Absolutely amazing. From there we quickly worked our way through some paintings, not that they weren’t great, but just neither one of our styles, until we made our way to the giant crowd, which meant we had reached the Mona Lisa.
Now, I’m not going to jump on the band wagon and be one of those people who say it’s tiny, unimpressive, not that special, blah blah blah… I will however say that it didn’t blow me away, but not because of anything having to do with the painting itself. I just don’t think it’s that possible to appreciate ANY piece of art that is behind six inches of glass, and you have to view it from at least fifteen feet away in what feels like the middle of a mosh pit at the Warped Tour. From there we worked our way through more of the Italian paintings, and found what we agreed was one of the coolest pieces in the gallery, a vivid depiction of David defeating Goliath, that is on back to back canvas showing the exact same scene from two different angles. Very cool.
We then moved on to the French paintings, before heading into the Renaissance. At this point we had been in the museum for over three hours and agreed that we no longer would know good art even if it had smacked us in the face, so we called it a day. Kyle headed over to the Hotel des Invalides, and I made my way to the Cathedrale de Notre Dame de Paris. Magnificent does not even come close to describing Notre Dame. By far one of the most impressive cathedrals I have ever seen.
The amount of detail in the architecture both inside and out is mind boggling. I found myself stopping ever few feet because I noticed something new and incredible with the slightest change in vantage point. I wandered, in awe, about the cathedral for almost an hour before making the 422 step hike to the top of the towers connected to the Church.
From here I hung out with some gargoyles, made a quick stop at the bell tower that houses the 13 ton bell, and enjoyed yet another amazing panoramic view of the city. After descending back down the spiral of steps I walked to the nearby Ste. Chapelle. This monument, a beautiful Gothic chapel, was built in 1248, and is seemingly made entirely of stained glass. I was fortunate that at the time of day I was there almost of all of the windows were brightly illuminated by late afternoon spring sun.
Stained glass is one of those things that no matter how many pictures you take, you can never capture on film how truly magnificent and intricate the artwork really is. I sat in awe for quite some time simply appreciating the detail in each window, before deciding to make my way back to the hostel. One thing I had not done since arriving in France was eat a crepe (very thin pancakes) so I decided to try one from a street side cart just outside the metro station. Deciding on the banana and Nutella crepe I was not disappointed. Back at the hostel, I made dinner, caught up with Kyle about his day and headed off to bed as I was waking up early to make the hour long journey to Versailles.
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