calling from some city...

We had a busy day of sightseeing planned for today. We had our Museum Passes in hand, so that allows us not to pay any ticket fees (since we paid for the pass) and to skip the lines. So we were excited to be able to see all the things we wanted to see in Paris in an efficient manner.

Scott woke up me shortly past 9 am because wanted to eat the free breakfast at the hostel before departing for the day. After breakfast, we got ready to go and made a quick stop at the supermarket to buy bread and ham to pack lunch. First, we went to the Louvre Museum. Obviously, the Louvre is an incredibly famous and well-known museum, particularly because it houses Leonardo Da Vinci’s painting Mona Lisa. After the Vatican Museum, it’s Europe’s most crowded museum, and it’s also the oldest museum in Europe. We got there and took pictures of the outside. The building of the Louvre itself is absolutely gorgeous because it used to be a palace in the 16^th century- just incredible architecture, as well as small fountains and the large glass pyramid entrance. We took note of the very long line to get in- probably 2 hours long- and promptly went to our own entrance, that was only for people with museum passes. We had no line to wait in and found ourselves quickly in the museum lobby.

So the Louvre is massive. It has several floors with numerous wings, and it’s impossible to see everything in one visit; you have to prioritize what you want to see. Its said that if you stared at every piece of art in the Louvre for 30 seconds each, it would take abut 2 years to go through the entire place. So it was essential for us to grab a map, figure out what we wanted to see, and then focus on those wings. I think we ended up seeing a good chunk of the museum. It was incredibly crowded, so that made it difficult to move around. We saw French paintings that were pretty interesting, but I’m not a huge fan of paintings. Of course we found the Mona Lisa. I’ve heard from many people that the painting is not that impressive and is over-rated. So I had low expectations, and so the painting basically met my low expectations. It’s a really small painting, and while I understand why it’s so famous, I don’t particularly find it pretty. You have to stand pretty far back from the painting itself, and there was just a massive crowd in front of it. It was good to see to say I’ve seen it, but I’ll never have to see it again in my life. However, we were told by someone on our travels to look at the painting directly behind the Mona Lisa, because it was much more impressive and sure enough, that painting was very cool.

Anyways, after the Mona Lisa we wondered throughout the museum. We saw some awesome French sculptures; many of the coolest sculptures we saw were the ones that not a lot of people were looking at. We saw the famous statues of Aphrodite and Psyche and Cupid. There were awesome sculptures of men sitting in chairs, reading and writing; these were cool because of the elaborate and intricate detailing. Its amazing how fine the details can be on a sculpture, and how realistic they could be. We saw countless statues with bodies intertwined, such as one with a lion biting a man, or one with a man and woman lying in each other’s arms, each with stab wounds. We saw some very interesting Egyptian art, including floor to ceiling sculptures that came out of the wall (I am sure there is a proper art term for them, but I don’t know what it is). We saw many jars and bowls- some people find these endlessly fascinating, or so Scott and I have heard. We saw the famous Code of Hammurabi, which is a code of laws from ancient Babylon etched on a statue of an index finger- you can clearly see the etchings, which was awesome. Finally, we saw the Napoleon III apartments, which were extravagantly decorated, of course. You would think after Versailles yesterday I would be sick of royal apartments, but I find still found it really cool to look at.

I’m sure we saw other art, but it’s difficult to remember. After about 2 hours in the museum, Scott and I decided we had enough so we went outside to wait for Sara to finish up. She tends to wander off on her own when in museums, so we usually find her at the end. We ate our sandwiches, took some more touristy pictures in front of the pyramid, and then headed on a walk along the Seine River.

Paris is an incredibly beautiful city. All of the buildings are so elegant looking and classy, and the city is just really pleasant to look at. Our next stop on our walk was the Saint-Chappelle, a Gothic church. Built in the mid 1200s, the Sainte-Chappelle is famous for its stained glass windows, which depict the stories of the Bible. The detailing was really pretty; I love stained glass windows. It’s a small church, so the visit there was relatively brief. Next, we went to Notre-Dame, a massive cathedral. The outside of the cathedral is really impressive- with incredibly fine details on the façade and 28 statues that line the middle. The inside was really pretty as well, so I took a lot of pictures of the ceiling details and stained glass windows. You can also climb to the top of Notre Dame, but the line was very long. While our museum passes covered the entrance fee, it did not allow to skip the lines like other sites (honestly, doesn’t seem very fair since skipping lines is one of the main perks of buying the pass in the first place). We debated, but decided we did not need to see the view from the top of Notre Dame. After taking more pictures of the outside, we headed to the next stop of the day: the Pompidou Center.

The Pompidou Center is a museum known for its modern art. I was extremely excited to see this museum, because I knew it would be something new and different from the other museums we have gone to. The outside of the building is incredible cool- its multicolored (mostly blue, red, and white) and you can see all of the stairs and elevators from the outside. The building is “exoskeletal,” meaning the functional arts of the building such as pipes and heating ducts are on the outside and thus visible. We got our tickets and headed to the first part of the gallery (there are 2 floors).

The first floor was a gallery by women of feminist art- entitled elles@centrepompidou. This exhibit looks at women’s role in art, because until very recently, women artists had far fewer opportunities than men artists. I loved most of the art in this gallery because it was really provocative and interesting. Some of the art was pretty radical, but it clearly shows the struggles that women face in the world that are often not understood or talked about (or least, until recently. Perhaps times are changing). A lot of the pieces also had to do with women taking control of their own lives, bodies, and minds, with the understanding we as women are allowed to express these points of view. The art brought attention to the ways in which women has been discriminated against in the past and continues to this day. Also, a lot of the explanations of art offered a lot of room for personal reflection and coming to our own points of view about the art, which I liked. So overall this was a really interesting exhibit.

The second floor of the museum was also really cool, as it showcased many famous examples of modern art by Picasso, Dali, Pollack, Delaunay, and Kandinsky. I especially like the art that uses a lot of color. Both floors of the museum showcased not only paintings, but eccentric and unique “sculptures” in which modern objects were altered or presented in a different way. It’s kind of hard to describe the art, mainly because the viewer is intended to derive their own meaning from what they are looking at. Overall, the museum was highly entertaining to me, and I enjoyed the roughly 2 hours we spent there.

After the Pompidou Center, we were supposed to wander down Champs-Elysees for the early evening and then go to the Arc de Triomphe. However, it was raining. Pouring, in fact, and for the first time this whole trip, the weather ruined our plans. We decided just to head back to the hostel and to move our evening’s plans to tomorrow night. Sara and Scott made salads for dinner, and I went to an Italian restaurant close to the hostel for a plate of pasta. It was mediocre, but it was food and it was cheap, so that’s good. Right now we are just relaxing at the hostel and working on organizing all of our photos and putting them into albums. Tomorrow is our last day in Paris and it’s packed with sights to see. Sadly, its also Sara’s last day in Europe- she leaves Wednesday morning. Sad.

Paris continues to be wonderful- very excited to see what tomorrow brings!