Our Trip Blog

The Events of Wednesday, April 27, 2011

                Our “deuxième jour” (second day) in Paris began at different times for each of us as we awoke in our apartment. Daddy was the first up today and on his walk stopped by the open air morning market and picked up some groceries. Ben woke soon after and when Daddy returned, he and Ben looked at lodging for our time in Germany. Mommy woke up and showered. Abby, and then I, woke up as Mommy finished her shower. Caitlin was the last to join the family as we gathered at the table for a cereal breakfast of Rice Crispies, Muesli (granola with dried fruit), and fresh oranges and orange juice. Then, after showers and such, we donned our tourist caps and backpacks and walked down the four flights of curving stairs to the street level. There are two doors to get in and out of the apartment, so once we passed through the first, we had to push a button to unlock the second door and then, WHOOSH! our first whiff of Paris.

                After trying to figure out the complex Metro system, we boarded a crowded, stuffy Metro car, hoping that we were going the right direction. We got off about 3 blocks from today’s site, the Louvre. We wanted to go in the Louvre through a secret entrance that avoided the long line by the glass pyramid entrance. But, after about 5 minutes of turning in circles, we ended up at the end of the long line in front of the glass pyramid entrance to the Louvre. It turns out that this secret entrance is so well concealed that even the Traveling Taylors could not find it! While we waited in line, Daddy and I (since I’m the French tour guide), looked at the Pariscope, a magazine he got for €0,40 at a newsstand. This magazine told us about free concerts that are going on in Paris, when they are, and where to find them. Caitlin and Mommy figured out where the secret entrance was and discovered that we had made one wrong turn and ended up on the riverside of the Louvre. C'est la vie. We took pictures of the Pyramid, the bubbling fountains surrounding, and the Louvre surrounding all. Once we finally reached the entrance of the pyramid (it was only about a thirty minute wait), we went through security check and then we were lost in the midst of the bright light and the dense crowd underneath the pyramid of the Louvre.

                After checking our bags, we plugged into our iPods and listened to the beginning of Rick Steves’ podcast, Louvre Museum Audio Tour. The first stop on the tour was actually closed for renovation, so we skipped on to Venus de Milo. The Greek goddess of love, beauty, and fertility (sometimes known as Aphrodite), leans back on her right leg, making her whole body form an elegant S-curve. Her right hip protrudes and her right shoulder droops low. The Greek gods and goddesses were depicted with human form, enabling artists to make idealized human figures. Venus is almost annoyingly perfect (from a feminine point of view), but even so, she is a great work of art. Both of her arms are missing and no one knows exactly what her arms were supposed to be doing. I think she is reaching down to grab her skirt. Mommy and I circled behind her and she gave me a lecture about how her back isn’t done correctly. Supposedly, her posture would cause her spine to protrude according to my physical therapist mother, and the artist only showed a slight dent in her back, but one doesn’t question one’s mother. We moved on to the next masterpiece, the Parthenon friezes. These friezes are from the original Greek Parthenon, built in about 440 BC, the peak of the Greek Golden age. The first one is of a centaur kidnapping a Greek girl, (that is the G-rated version). The other shows the procession of young Greek girls walking up to the statue of the goddess of wisdom, Athena.

                Winged Victory depicts the Greek goddess of Victory standing on the prow of a ship. The statue was built in celebration of a naval victory in 2 B.C. and the statue once overlooked the island of Samothrace from atop a hill. The wind and water of the sea plasters Victory’s flowing dress to her skin. Her now missing arm once thrust towards the heavens in a victorious fist. I love this statue. While Venus de Milo makes me want to take a bubble bath, Victory has so much action and energy that I just want to jump in the air and celebrate. Our tour took us next past several Roman busts and statues to a view looking out in the courtyard of the Louvre with the glass Pyramid standing tall in the center. We walked under a beautifully painted ceiling into a long, luxurious looking room. Lining the walls were portraits of the French kings that ruled at the Louvre when it was the Royal Palace of France. In the center of the room were glass cases containing beautiful tableware, crowns, and precious jewels used and worn by the French kings of the past.

                After the king’s room, we moved onto Italian Renaissance paintings. Most of these were kind of “been there, done that,” but we browsed through anyway. Rick Steves led us through these pieces to some works by Leonardo da Vinci. There are a total of four of his original paintings in the Louvre. The first three paintings, The Virgin of the Rocks and an unnamed portrait of a young Italian lady, went unnoticed by most of the crowds. One of his works, The Virgin and Child with Saint Anne was not there and so a little disappointed we followed the crowds and the noise into the room housing the Mona Lisa.          There she was, elegantly sitting behind a thick sheet of bullet proof glass, smirking at the heavy breathing tourist crowds raising their cameras high to get the perfect shot (which was impossible because of the glaring lights reflecting off the glass). It was kind of sad how crazy it was. Everyone was pushing and shoving, like second graders in line for lunch. I appreciated how some people put down their cameras after a while and just looked at the painting as they would look at any other. The Mona Lisa is a little smaller than one would expect, but the sheer perfection of the painting is enough to make you like it. I personally wouldn’t hang her in my living room (like King Louis XIV did), but it helped me to better appreciate Leonardo da Vinci’s genius. Well, we had been in the Louvre for almost two hours, so we moved through the crowds and after reclaiming our bags, headed out through the secret entrance into the Tuilerie Gardens for lunch. We found a grassy spot for our lunch of bread, cheese, meat, apples, peppers, carrots, and cookies (basically raw s-mores without the marshmallows, yum!) and rested ourselves from all the art.

                On our way back into the museum, we went through the secret entrance, passing dozens of souvenir shops and at least two Starbucks before reaching the security checkpoint. Then, we rechecked our bags and plugged back in where we left off on our tour of the Louvre. We skimmed the Egyptian and ancient Greek sections and then found our way back to Mona Lisa. In the room directly behind her, we got our first taste of French art. This first room had one painting that is not famous, but we all liked it a lot. La Jeune Martyre by Paul Delaroche is a dramatic painting of a female martyr being drowned for her faith. But instead of trying to save herself, she gracefully and courageously lets herself fall to the depths of the water. The serenity of this painting is astounding. I would hang this painting in my bedroom because every time I looked at it, I wanted to just lie down next to her and fall asleep.

                The next room was full of paintings from the Romantic period; many of them masterpieces, we spent a while here. The first one was The Raft of the Medusa by Theodore Gericault. Gericault astounded the critical public of his day with his dramatic, eye-opening painting of an actual historical event. The Raft of Medusa tells the story of the shipwrecked Medusa off the coast of Africa. One hundred and fifty people escaped by means of a raft. For twelve days, the seas churned around them. Many died of starvation, others resorted even to cannibalism. The painting is of the twelfth day. A ship (that eventually did rescue them) has been spotted on the distant horizon. The bodies on the raft rise up forming a triangle of hope. The apex of the triangle is a man’s hand waving a handkerchief. Gericault took this event seriously and interviewed the fifteen survivors. He sketched dead people and patients at the local asylum to truly portray the agony of the situation. And it is an extremely dramatic painting.

                Another of my favorite paintings in the Louvre is The Sleepiness of Endymion by Anne de Roussy-Trioson. The subject of the painting is not why I favor it, but the quality. On the left side of the painting, a playful angel pulls back a bush letting in soft sunlight that draws your eyes to the center of the picture where Endymion lies naked on the ground, a mossy rock his pillow. I’m not quite sure the story behind this painting, but it is most definitely beautiful. The sunlight bounces off Endymion’s too-perfect body creating what looks like a soft mist. I could stare at this painting for hours.

                As we turned around to go to the next room of art, Mom asked, “Where’s Abby?” Caitlin was her assigned partner but had lost track of her. We looked around and saw her nowhere. Suddenly, Abby came streaming towards us, tears running down her cheeks. “I t-turned ar-round and you, you weren’t there!” Abby cried, her words muffled by Mom’s hug. She was a little shaken up, but after a few hugs apologies and reminders of “proper operating procedures when lost”, Abby was soon over being lost in the Louve and we moved on.

                One of the most famous paintings in the museum was next on the list, so after seeing a few more very dramatic Romantic paintings, we went to gawk at The Coronation of Napoleon. Rick Steves had a good explanation of this painting, so I will quote from Rick Steves’ Europe 101 … “Napoleon holds his crown while his wife, Josephine, kneels and his proud mom (not actually in attendance, but painted in anyway) looks on from the balcony. The pope (seated behind Napoleon) came all the way from Rome to crown him. But no ordinary mortal was good enough for that job, so Napoleon crowned himself.” The painting is the largest in the Louvre and definitely impressive.

                On our way out of French paintings, we passed a piece that made Mom smile. When we were in elementary school, every afternoon, Mom would supplement our education by reading a book called What Your-blank-Grader Needs to Know. In fourth grade, in the art section (which we read on Thursdays), these books taught us about three-dimensional art and how the subjects make certain shapes with their bodies to draw your eye to a certain point. The example painting that was used was The Sons of Horatio by Louis David. And now, we were standing in front of the original painting in the Louvre. We laughed as Mom quizzed us on the painting.

                The last stop of Rick Steve’s audio tour was Michelangelo’s Slaves. The statues stand next to each other. Michelangelo believed that his God-given purpose in life was to reveal the beings trapped in stone. We saw his “prisoners” in Florence and now we looked at his “slaves” in Paris. One slave looks as if he should be reclining on a red velvet couch. His face is full of the peaceful look of blissful sleep. The other looks towards the heavens, rebelling against his master, the stone. His right arm reaches behind his back as if trying to pull himself free. One is content with life and somewhat weak; the other is rebellious and strong. But, they both are great pieces of art. That was the end of our audio tour. We decided that we also wanted to see Napoleon’s apartments and then the Code of Hammurabi in the Egypt section. Napoleon’s apartments were acceptably luxurious and rich. His bedchamber was a public area; his bed was surrounded by benches and chairs for those interested in watching the emperor sleep. The dining hall, with seating for 46, had beautiful crystal chandeliers and the sitting rooms had these curvy threesome chairs for the courting lords and ladies of France. And then it was off to the Code of Hammurabi.

                After walking a very long distance, we encountered a dead end at one end of the Louvre. So, we went up an uncountable number of stairs, through dozens of halls, until Caitlin and Ben, who were leading us, excitedly shouted, “There it is!” Though a little disappointing, for all the lengths we went to get to it, the Code of Hammurabi was pretty cool to see face to face. All surfaces of the dense stone are covered in lettering and pictures. The Code of Hammurabi was the first known written code of law in the history of the entire world. All that stood between us and this ancient relic was a velvety rope.

                So, our journey complete, we walked to Elevator P (the stairs on the floor were closed for renovation) and waited. The Louvre’s elevators are very picky. They measure the total weight of their passengers and won’t close the doors until enough people get off. After being cut in front of twice, somewhat annoyed, we finally got onto an elevator with just the six of us and a mom and her son from Spain. You would think that that would be fine, but the elevator beeped and a voice came over the intercom and told us in French that there was too much weight in the elevator. Well, we weren’t about to get off, so Mom explained to the other two that they had to get off, pointing to the button in red that showed a scale going off the charts. As the doors shut behind them, the Spanish mom muttered, “İQué gordos!” Daddy started laughing. We all asked what he thought was so funny and he said that the mom had said, “How fat you are!” So, we ended our day at the Louvre with a laugh and headed home.