A Day at The Louvre

At the top of my list of places to visit in Paris is the Louvre. I am by no means an art buff but this is the art museum of all art museums and there were plenty of items that I wanted to see there.

The museum offers free admission on the first Sunday of the month starting in October, so I waited a few weeks to save 12 Euros. This combined with my strategy of buying a monthly subway pass instead of individual tickets (to save a few Euros each month) is why my Dutch coworkers say that I'm very "Dutch". It turns out there were plenty of budget travelers in Paris last weekend who also came for the free admission, so the Louvre was a bit crowded that day.

I was there for about five hours, which was enough time to thoroughly visit the Denon wing and briefly scan the Richelieu wing. I will go back again to see the Sully and Richelieu wings, as the museum is far too large to properly see in one day.

Here are the highlights:

The Pyramid outside the Louvre, with the lineup extending around this courtyard and around another one further back. Fortunately, the line moved very quickly as there were no tickets to be checked. I also discovered later that there are other entrances around the museum with much shorter lineups.

Of course the one painting everyone wants to see is La Joconde (the Mona Lisa). A crowd filled the entire room to see it, while other hallways of the museum were nearly empty.

I finally nudged my way to the front of the crowd and this is as close as I could get. The Mona Lisa is actually smaller than I expected.

For the law enthusiasts, the Code of Hammurabi, the first written set of laws. Below the sculpture, the rest of the pillar is engraved with Babylonian text.

The Galerie d'Apollon was the most impressive room in the museum. The ceiling contained detailed paintings and sculptures, one set for each month of the year and another set for each sign of the zodiac.

A Moai from Easter Island. The resemblance is uncanny.

L'Assomption de la Vierge by Martin Knoller.

I always appreciate the intricacy of paintings that contain other paintings. This is Gallery of Views of Modern Rome by Giovanni Paolo Pannini.

Another intricate work by Pannini, Musical feast given by the cardinal de la Rochefoucauld.

La Pentecote, by Jean Restout. This painting was at least 15 feet high.

A local favourite, the Coronation of Napoleon, by Jacques-Louis David.

So that was the Louvre, or at least a third of it. I did not see the Venus de Milo as it is in the Sully wing, but it will be on the top of my list for the next visit.

I am trying to alternate my posts between Paris and other cities in Europe, so if my travels go according to plan, my next post should involve Spain...