The Louvre

On Monday - when everyone at my work went to Disneyland (I didn't go because Mr. Speacial WANTS to go there sooooo bad) we decided to go to the Louvre. This time got there early - about half an hour after opening - to avoid queueing half the day and the plan was succesfull :) The small queue outside the pyramid was just like a slow walk. Which started with Mr. Special making his presence known to everyone by almost falling flat on his face... I travel with a little child -.- He didn't want to go the long way around the ropes and seeing some people step over them he wanted to too... Lets just say he can't actually lift his legs up so high to step over it without tripping - three times -.- everyone laughed... hahaha indeed...

Now for the people ready to queue outside of the pyramid - the wait isn't over! (evil laugh) upon entering the pyramid your bag is scanned and you can proceed into the pyramid, where you can buy tickets, have a coffee, visit the souvenir shops etc. There are about 10 ticket desks - each with their own queue and then self service machines that we used - a smaller queue there obviously. It took us about 10-15 minutes to get a ticket. (TIP: there are several entrances to this ticket hall - so if there's a huge queue at the pyramid you might try the other less known and less obvious entrances (some might let you in the museum directly and/or require a ticket already though) - might save you a lot of time).

Needless to say it IS huge. I knew this before visiting but I was still baffled and amazed. At first we wandered around aimlessly for about half an hour (saw the Venus of Milo etc), then saw signs to the Mona Lisa, followed them :D You can easily spot the small painting in front of a sum of people are trying to take photos of it :D It's funny to watch from afar. So shoved (in a polite manner of course) our way in front of it as well, don't think I took any photos though and since I'm not the world's biggest art lover I wasn't too excited about it trying to take a selfie with it - like some others did while holding their precious position in front of it - about 10 metres from the painting - to get their friends/family on the selfie as well - jeesh louise :D After that we continued on in the endless Italian paintings corridor until we found the little British corner :D So cute. Then we went downstairs where there was hardly any people and checked out the african, oceanian, central american etc sculpture section - those pieces were so unique and interesting, probably my favourite part... - and then went back up and you could feel that there were loads more people there than before. Probably an hour and a half or a bit more had passed since we entered and only now we felt the overcrowdedness of the Louvre (near the Mona Lisa that is). Obviously in Louvre terms we hadn't seen anything yet... But we were hungry! dun dun dun dun

The first café we found was closed :( so had to walk the whole way to the other wing! (which we hadn't seen yet so yay). There we found the "Art Objects" section which had some furniture and jewellery :) I like that sort of thing far better than paintings. Another happening: Mr. Touchy here just can't help himself and now to my amusement (I always have to tell him off for touching everything all the time) he began to put his hand on some art object when the alarm sound went off! HA!HA!HA!HA! That'll teach you a lesson! They have motion sensors to keep handsy people away!!!!

Shortly after that incident we found the café - omg the prices!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! about 10 euros or so for a club sandwich - a sandwich!!!!!!!!! I'll starve thank you very much! Luckily there was an outdoor terrace café right next to it with a meal deal for 8-9 euros for either a club-sandwich or a baguette with a packet of crisps and a drink - so affordable :) + we got to sit on one of the Louvre balconies enjoying a view to the glass pyramid :) Mr. Special had some troubles with his baguette because the day before he had broken his tooth, poor guy.

We were both tired by that time but were not going to give up just yet - so went and had a look at the Napoleon III apartment. Amazing!!!! They had so much unnecessary room and chairs etc at that time so the rooms are huge but nice to look at :) Then a glance at the Scandinavian and Russian paintings - now most of those were familiar to me :) and I felt more of a connection and understanding there than in the Italian corridor... maybe it's all in my head.

There were people (professionals) copying the artworks in front of us, but all of them were at the last stages of their work :( I would've wanted to see someone just starting their painting - that's way more interesting than seeing someone perfecting the coloring of a leaf etc :D + I'm not utterly convinced that they started their paitings with a completely blank canvas - but that might just be my cynicism.

Ttyl ;)

Jazzz...