Mad Dash to Mona

Thursday - September 11, 2008

This was another busy day!
We woke up and freshened up then headed out for breakfast at the cafe Miss Manon where yesterday's yummy quiche and sandwich came from. We took our time enjoying quiche and people watching - it was a lot of fun, but we could only linger for a little while - we were on our way to the Louvre. We learned from the visit to the Orsay to go first thing in the morning - so we amended our earlier plan to from getting there at 1pm to instead start our day inside the museum - so off we went!

We got off the metro at Palais Royale and went in through the not so secret "secret underground enterance" - but it was a lot shorter of a line, so there were no difficulties getting in - so the tip paid off. We decided to go to see the Mona Lisa first so we wouldn't risk missing it - so we followed the signs pointing the way. After a few flights of stairs and twisting through a couple of rooms and halls we could hear the burble of voices echoing through a room - so I figured we were getting closer. I passed a woman who said in English, "There's going to be a lot of religious paintings in here." as we entered the Italian Painting hall and I thought: Italian - Renaissance - it made me chuckle as if to say, "Ya think?"
Sure enough the rumble of voices and the rhythm of foot steps were all from the crowd of people gathered around the famous portrait. I knew it wasn't going to be very big - in fact, I expected it to be smaller than it was. It was blocked off by about fifteen feet so you couldn't really get close enough to see the detail and the texture of the painting, which for me is part of the great thing about seeing art in person - so we took a few photos, tried our best to "see" it, then made our way through the throng of people trying to get to the edge of the barricade themselves.
We felt a deflated sense of loss once we turned away from Mona thinking we'd made that quick run and we were met with disappointment and felt so guilty to feel so bland about the reknown work of art. Then we looked across the room to The Feast of Cana, and were rewarded with the awe we were looking for. The painting is HUGE, and gorgeous!! The details are fabulous and the emmensity is astounding. It helped ease the sense of apathy about Mona.

We spent six and a half hours strolling through the Louvre. We took extra care to make sure we saw the things we wanted to see: French Paintings, Italian Paintings, Egyptian treasures, French and some Italian sculpture, along with parts of the Mesopotamian display. We missed about 35 - 40% of the artwork and all of the Medieval portions - maybe more. We zoomed through some parts but lingered on the items we wanted to see. At one painting that we both found interesting John and I sat and sketched our interpretation of it, Hamlet and Horatio at the Graveyard, we had fun sitting and relaxing and drawing. It was a much needed break.
We started to get weary and very hungry so we left the museum and had some of the snacks that we had packed, we sat in the concourse and nibbled while we people watched. It was a nice break again from all the walking we had been doing. We headed out of the museum this time through the large glass pyramid and made our way through the Tuileries. We stopped at the Carrousel de Louvre for pictures with the first Arc.

We walked through the Tuileries to the Place de la Concorde and took pictures of the Oblisque and the fountain. It was nice to see the fountain that was the inspiration for the large fountain in front of Paris, Las Vegas. From the Concorde it wasn't far to the Magdeline so we strolled up the street to the church. When went inside the choir was rehearsing so we got to hear a tiny bit of angelic voices that filled the nave and echoed though the building - it was very beautiful and we felt blessed to be there at that time.
When we left the church and took the metro back to the Bastille station finally getting a chance to get photos of the Colannadde du Juillet and the statue of Beaumarchais that we bypassed on our way to our hotel on the very first day. We also stopped at Lenotre for some pasteries. We bought schoss au fruit, a custard dessert with fruit on top: blueberries, strawberries, and currants. We also bought a tart du framboise: a flaky tart crust with fresh raspberries and a layer of apricot jam. We took our treats and snacked on them at Place des Vosges and got our picture taking in with our people watching.

We decided to think about a real meal so we headed towards the stores and cafes to decide on dinner but I quickly popped into the Monoprix to look for a fuse for our power converter (we thought it had blown), on the way out I noticed the people were coming in were wet. It had started raining while we were inside - and it was coming down pretty hard. We got really wet in no time at all. We quickly go something to eat from a shop and made our way to our hotel. The idea of going back out into the rain wasn't too pleasant so we headed back to the hotel and stayed in for the night. We'd done so much walking already that we were ready to get into our pj's and get some rest!

-Karen