Louvre

We all wake up a little late that morning, and Fred and I head down the street to get a breakfast while Bill does his ablutions. We walk down to the mall at Les Halles and pick up our tickets at the FNAC store that was so elusive to Fred and I the day before.

We walk into the eastern courtyard and are amazed at the scale of the place. With our tickets we go in the reserved entrance and down into the main gallery underneath the glass pyramid.

Louvre

Louvre panorama from plaza

Louvre

Louvre

As we have different tastes, we split up from our friend Bill. The beginning of our tour takes us through the foundations of the original fortress. We then go up through the ages including Greek and Roman art, into the middle ages and then the Impressionistic era. We have lunch in the third floor dining room with Bill. The orange colored soup proved to be a delicious tomato, not the carrot one would have assumed; this is in keeping with the namesake of the restaurant, Richelieu.

Louvre

The afternoon we spend looking at the royal apartments and the statue courtyard. Loretta likes the crypts and their realistic portrayals of a life at leisure (reading, with dogs at the foot of the ladies and lions at the foot of the men); which became more morbid as the Black Death encroached. Fred enjoyed very much the statue courtyard. We finally do a march through the Louvre and realize there's just no way to see the entire place. We did not see the Mona Lisa as waiting in line to view her would have cut into other museum viewings.

Louvre - Royal Apartments

Louvre  steps

Part of crypt