Paris – The Louvre, Eiffel Tower, and Other Sites

"So, what's the big deal about Mona Lisa anyway?"
- overheard at the Louvre Museum

Mom and I both had our eyes fill with tears as we walked through a hallway at the Metro on our way to the Louvre and heard beautiful classical violin music filling the air. So unexpected - a little piece of heaven in our morning.

Busker at the Metro.

About fifteen minutes into our exploration of the special exhibit about death and afterlife beliefs of the ancient Egyptians, I was shocked to discover that the girl we met at the station upon our arrival in Paris was standing next to me! We started quietly chatting about our experiences so far in Paris but at one point we got a little too animated and an older woman walking past shushed us loudly. We all gave apologetic looks and whispered, “Sorry!” but the woman just glared at us over her shoulder as she walked away. We just laughed quietly.

Mom and I tried to figure out which exhibits we wanted to see but we found it difficult to know for sure what we would find in each section. We ended up covering quite a bit of the museum, although we were quite disappointed that the display descriptions were only in French. We were impressed with the audio guides – they even had video screens and commentary for children (quite fun to hear the dramatizations and animated descriptions rather than the sober commentary from the museum curator, though I usually preferred the more formal, technical commentary).

The view up into one of the glass pyramids in the courtyard above the central entrance area.

Crowd in front of Leonardo da Vinci's Mona Lisa.

The Mona Lisa. For real. Although they could be using a fake and we'd never know.

Looking out at the crowds and gallery in the front of the Mona Lisa.

An art gallery room at the Louvre. The building itself is beautiful!

A portrait this large makes me wonder two things.
1. What kind of house does this look appropriate in?
2. Was this girl embarrassed to have such a huge likeness of herself painted?

A hall in the Louvre museum.

When stopping for lunch at a cafe on an upper floor of the Louvre we gagged over the view of a couple French kissing in the line of people waiting for tables and then enjoyed a view from the terrace over the inner courtyard. Pigeons hopped along the ledge in front of us, their beady little eyes silently begging us to spill our food on the ground. Our waiter was absolutely miserable, rolling his eyes and lifting his hands in a gesture of hopelessness before strutting away when I requested a few more minutes to decide on my meal. I selected a salad with contents I wasn't really sure about (never heard of a fish called “Red Mullet” before), but I figured it would probably taste good and it's sometimes fun to experiment and see what ends up being delivered on your plate. It tasted pretty good - the fish had some sort of fatty coating or something and didn't have a very distinctive seafood flavour, but still tasted fine.

The view from our table on the terrace.

My mystery fish salad.
(Also not sure why the toast was scorched.)

A room in Napoleon's apartments.

I suspect this chair was both awkward to place in a room and awkward to sit in, though still fun to look at.

Staircase in Napoleon's apartments.

Elements from Napoleon's throne room.

I worked at a custom picture framing shop quite a few years ago and as I wander through the incredible art galleries in Europe my eye is continually drawn to the unbelievably ornate frames.

Quite the location for an art class.

Following our visit to the Louvre we went to Notre Dame (I didn't find the interior very photogenic), walked past the Sorbonne, arrived at the Panthon ten minutes after they closed, stopped at a gelato shop (I tried chocolate, strawberry, passionfruit, and yogurt), and then went to the Eiffel Tower to catch the elevators to the top.

Gelato somehow makes a hot day and lots of walking seem less daunting.

In the elevator from the middle platform to the top of the Eiffel Tower there was a Spanish speaking family and as we rose higher and higher one of the girls made a comment, something to the effect of, “We're going to die!” and her dad firmly said, “Silencio!”

Zoomed in on the Arc de Triomphe.

View from the top of the tower.

The tower contains the distance to many major cities around the world, including Montreal (5,517 km), Toronto (6,014), and Ottawa (5,662). Not sure why Vancouver didn't make the cut.

A friend from Canada suggested that we go to a particular restaurant as the food is well-priced and delicious (“try the lamb – it will change your life”). She gave me the address, the guy at the hostel circled the general area on the map, and we decided to make an attempt at finding it. We had to stop and ask for directions a few times and were told it was in Le Marais district but still couldn't find the restaurant after walking up and down the street. Several people we spoke to, including a young drunk guy with a cigarette in a holder and a cross-dressing maitre d', insisted we were on the correct street, and we finally decided that the restaurant with the word “Petit” in the title was probably the one they were referring to, although the name wasn't the same as the one we had been given. By this time it was about 10:00 p.m. and the area wasn't exactly the kind of place where we wanted to be walking at 11:00 p.m. as we searched for the nearest Metro after dinner, so we headed to a more comfortable area and got a cafe recommendation from two girls who stopped and said, “You two look really lost – do you need help?” By this time we were exhausted and starving – thankfully our food was delicious and we easily made our way to the Metro, took the now familiar route to the hostel, and crawled into bed a little past midnight.

I accidentally ordered a salad that came with goose liver pate but it actually tasted pretty good!

Sarah (Allteck), these photos were shot just for you as we wandered the dimly lit streets of Paris. I couldn't help thinking of you when I saw a window full of fun shoes.