Louvre as a Maze

On May 28th, we had tickets to the Louvre at 11 am. As soon as we woke, showered, grabbed a coffee and crepe, we headed to the Louvre. It was massive and incredibly beautiful. Below is a picture from outside the Passage Richelieu and then when the passage opens into the courtyard area. As popular as the glass pyramids are, I found that I really don't like them up close and personal. Immediately, they took away from the magnificence of the original architecture and overall aesthetics (in my humble opinion).

Louvre courtyard from inside. Even the ceilings merited a stop, look and awe!

When people say that you could spend days, weeks, even months in the Louvre and not see everything, they were NOT exaggerating! We spent at least 6 hours and only barely scratched the surface of the most popular items. The map is one's best friend; however, it can still be frustrating getting around as some wings have duplicate numbered rooms (10, 11, 12, 13 going in opposite directions...which #13 is the right room?) and some passage ways were closed, so you had to find a longer alternate route to get from a to b. Dave said that the room numbering thing was very "French." "Wait, we don't have enough numbers, but have duplicates of these. Ah, then we make these rooms 10, 11, 12, and 13, too. Now we can have wine and baguette."

Dave with the Code of Hammurabi. The oldest written laws.

The famous Mona Lisa.

One of my favorite paintings. I have no idea what it's called or who it's by, but it took my breath away when I saw it.

Another painting I know nothing about, but thought was beautiful.

Napoleon III's apartments. By far, one of the highlights of my visit. They were unbelievably extravagant!

Psyche & Cupid by A. Canova

After a long day, we finally found Aphrodite: Venus de Milo!

Once we finished at the Louvre, we set out to find an internet cafe. The hotel had some semblance of internet, but it was ornery and difficult to use. We took the metro to the biblioteque. We asked a girl where the biblioteque was and she said, once you get to the street, it's the big glass building, you can't miss it. When we topped the stairs from the metro to the street and looked around, we noticed that all the buildings were glass! I was so exhausted and hungry that all I could do was laugh. After a wild goose chase, I was about to turn into medusa. No food and drink makes Martie a very irritable girl, no matter what fabulous location she's in. We found a really cool pizza place, UP (stands for Urban Pizza). They had an 8,90 euro special. One (very large) pizza, biere (beer), vin (wine) or soda and cafe. Our waitress Chloe, was very nice, she let us know that since we were so close to the University, and internet was available there, no internet cafe's had survived. Wifi was everywhere though...if only I had a laptop! Chloe was nice enough to let us borrow her laptop so that Dave could check his email and I could charge my phone. Chloe also helped us with our French. :) I was in a much better mood after that!!