Day 7: The Louvre Museum

Today we went to the Louvre Museum. It has several entrances, but we went to the central courtyard to use the famous pyramid designed by I.M. Psi. The courtyard also gives you an idea of just how massive the place is. The Louvre is comprised of three buildings, each the size of a normal museum, and they are all filled with art and antiquities. We had purchases a Paris Museum pass, and so we didn't have to wait in the obnoxiously long ticket line (the pass really doesn't save you much vs individual museum entry fees, but not having to spend an hour in line makes it worth it).

Once inside, we went straight for the Mona Lisa, sort of. You have to walk past a bunch of Roman statues and other Italian masters to get there, and we spent a good deal of time looking at these. When we actually arrived at the gallery holding the Mona Lisa, we were a bit disappointed. The Mona Lisa really isn't that large of a painting (it's maybe the size of a poster), and the crowd around it is 10 people deep, and everybody is holding up cell phones and cameras trying to take a picture (you can see the crowd in the picture after Mona). The museum holds numerous other marvelous works of art, including the Venus de Milo, metopes from the Temple of Zeus at Olympia (a Wonder of the Ancient World), two sculptures by Michelangelo, massive Assyrian reliefs from the palace of Sargon, the impossibly lavish Napoleon III apartments, and an entire room full of Rembrandts (and there's not a whole lot of those anywhere), but none of these draw crowds like that smiling lady. We spent a few minutes getting as close to the painting as we could, and then moved on to the other stuff (Napoleon III's apartments make Powell Hall look like a crack house if you compare the richness of their decor). I have a bit of a cold right now, and when I ran out of steam, we left the museum, with several collection highlights left for another trip (guess I'll have to take the girlfriend next time).

After I had some tea and a nap, we went out to the Rue Mouffetard for dinner. According to the gentleman whose daughter's apartment we are staying in, this is one of the four or five old food streets of Paris. He isn't kidding. There are five or six narrow blocks where every establishment seems to be a boulangerie, fromager, boucherie, chocolatier, wine shop, cafe, creperie, gelateria, grocer, or bar, with the occasional clothing store or schlock shop thrown in to spice things up. We stopped at a creperie our host recommended, and had delicious savory crepes (I think these are called gallettes by the French). We also stopped at a cheese shop called Androuet and bought some cheese for tomorrow. As we walked along the street, we came across a bar that advertised shots of absinthe, and I couldn't resist trying a dance with la fee verte. For dessert, my mom got gelato, which was delicately put into the cone like a flower, and I had an opera cake, which is a layer cake of almond sponge cake soaked in coffee, with coffee buttercream and chocolate ganache. Delicious.

Tomorrow, we will go to Versailles.