Sunday 24 May 2015

Day 57 18 May 2015 Paris




[The internet keeps dropping out so I will post this with text only and then again with photos if possible.  The announced German train strikes luckily have not affected our train travel between Paris and Brussels and Brussels and Prague.]
Today we were going to the Louvre.  We had researched it through books, TripAdvisor and the internet.  There had been some terrible reviews so we had done our homework.  We got there just after the 9AM opening and he Paris Pass queue wasn’t too long.  The crowd made a bee line for Mona Lisa and certainly even though we were early it was crowded, indeed almost the whole museum involved large crowds and it could be a bit claustrophobic.  
The Louvre is like – WOW.  It represents the pinnacle of human expression, it was quite extraordinary. I’m concerned that when we go to the Palace of Versailles that I will just think it’s a dump. We spent the first two hours on adrenaline.  We enjoyed a lunch on an outside veranda which was quite lovely. Recharged we continued to battle the crowds.

The highlights were:
The Winged Victory of Samothrace
The Venus de Milo
The paintings Mona Lisa, Feast of Canna and Coronation of Napoleon
The apartments of Napoleon III (obviously not a fan of IKEA)
The murals of Marie de Medici and French king Henry IV.
The Apollo Room and the French crown jewels
The Egyptian scribe and boats

We probably saw 85% of what we wanted to see.  It was a long and tiring day but it truly was an extraordinary day.  We may come back to the Louvre as they do have a late night opening. 

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