Part 9 London and Paris 10 Day Getaway - The Louvre

2:12 PM AirplaneFoodCritic 0 Comments

Today we visit the Louvre. My feet will barely make it. They are so sore and swollen from all the walking of the last 7 days but I am determined to do it! We approached the pyramid along the same path the took the night before. It was fun to see the glass structure at night then again in the morning. It is another beautiful day but we must go inside. But first we had to take a bunch of silly photos like tourists do so we did. We are HILarious! And no where near original except for the fact that most people were putting their fingers on the tip of the structure.

Having a lean on the Louvre.

Getting a leg up on the Louvre

I did all kinds of research saying how to avoid the long lines to get into the Louvre like buying tickets in advance or finding secret hidden entrances. We just walked right into the front door with basically no line at all. We entered the glass pyramid and took the escalator down to the main floor. The first thing one must do is see the Mona Lisa so that is what we did straight away. I have seen this painting a couple times before and it always strikes me how small it really is.

Right when we got there there were very few people crowding around the Mona Lisa so I was able to walk right up to it!

We were so lucky that there were not a lot of people around. In fact, I later learned that yesterday, when we had originally planned to visit the Louvre, it was closed so that Beyonce and her family could tour it all by themselves. I was able to walk right up to the Mona Lisa and many, many other famous works. We made our way along the long corradors looking at all the most famous paintings like Liberty Leading the People, The Wedding at Cana, The Raft of the Medusa and multiple Caravaggios and Vermeers, two of my favorite artists.

Vermeer's The Lace Maker. Amazeballs.

We also saw all the famous sculptures you are supposed to see like Venus de Milo and Winged Victory. We went through rooms and rooms of statues in fact. Every time I found a bench I had to sit down for a bit though. My feet were killing me and I could barely walk at this point. The bf had never been so we had to see it all. Who knows when we will be back again? And you might recall that his method of visiting a museum is to see Every. Single. Thing.

Venus de Milo and me.

We made our way down to the depths of the Louvre where the Egyptian artifacts are. It felt like we came full circle from our first day in the Egyptian section in London at the British Museum and now our last day in Paris, in the Louvre. We saw more mummies, sarcophaguses, the Book of the Dead and canopic jars. They even had actual tombs that were disassembled and reassembled in the basement of this museum! Pretty interesting. I really liked the actual furniture the Egyptians used. They were small.

The real hot chocolate. So think and chocolatey!

After all that walking...well, for me hobbling...we hit up Angelina's again. This time I fueled up on their famous hot chocolate. It is basically a slightly melted chocolate bar. We also got a big meal. We have not been eating all that normal in Paris because of the lack of good vegetarian options. It is a bit disappointing, really. You are supposed to eat a lot in Paris but we made up for it in sweets I think. At Angelina's this day though, we had big meals. We realized if we want to have anything close to hearty without meat we have to go with Italian food. The bf had truffle mushroom ravioli and I had a rolled up chicken breast with herbed mashed potatoes.

Last meal in Paris

After eating we went back to the hotel to pack up all our goodies. Again, we were so happy that our friend, Andy, in London, leant us a duffel bag because with the snorkels and everything we bought to take home, there was NO way we would have fit it. I normally take with me a rolled up duffel bag but this trip I was using a smaller spinner suitcase the didn't really fit it and I usually borrow the duffel from my folks who were on their own trip at the time! Until next time, Europe!