Friday afternoon, we had another cultural activity: a visit to the Louvre. Since we didn't want to be subjected to another Blair tour, we planned to go to the museum, leave the group and visit on our own, and then go to the Tuilerie Gardens to ride the Grand Roue.Unfortunately, Sunny got roped into collecting everyone's headphones from the museum tour, and had to wait until it was over to return them. She was afraid to tell Prof. Blair no, since he was already pissed at petit Paul for getting confused while counting the people in our group (it turns out he lost track of who was a tourist and who was in the program). We decided to go the fair after dinner.
As soon as we went into the museum, we "lost" our tour group. The Louvre was packed, so no one noticed. This turned out to be for the best as Sunny reported that the guide assigned to them was very rude, made everyone spit out their gum, and pretty much had her group run past the six most famous works of art in the museum while she yelled out their names.
Meanwhile,Don, Gina, and I came up with a plan of action for our visit. I was game for whatever, since I'm going to the Louvre again when Juli comes to visit, but Gina wanted to see the Italian paintings and sculptures, and Don the Fragonards and Bouchers, since he's writing about them for his thesis. And off we went.
After a wrong turn into the Metal Work wing, we made it to the Italian statues and walked around while Don told us the story of how some of the male figures lost their penises (the pope, indecency, etc). We wondered if there was a vault in the Vatican specifically set aside for confiscated marble phalluses. From then we walked what seemed like a mile- past Egyptian Art, Winged Victory, a tour group of German tourists, and Ancient Greek Jewelry- to Italian painting. It always amazes just how many masterpieces there are in the Louvre. Works that one sees in books and postcards all the time are suddenly right in front of you. Completely impressive!
By this point, Gina was getting irritated. Her efforts to photograph the Mona Lisa had been thwarted by her inability to break through the mass of tourists camped out in front (a good number of them with DaVinci Code books). And we'd been walking around for a bit so her feet hurt. It does take a certain a mount of stamina to maneuver around the museum. It's just unbelievably huge. But we did see some nuns walking around! I never feel my day is complete anymore unless I see a random nun or two.
At the next wing, we stopped to look at the artwork, and Gina decided to rest a little, which she unfortunately did by laying down on a bench. Immediately, a large security guard started yelling at her. Something about, "this isn't your museum...french french french...go home if you want to lay down..french french french". And she kept on muttering until we were out of her gallery. Gina was mortified, but the embarrassment gave her the energy to keep on trucking.
We walked another twenty minutes and up two flights of stairs to the Fragonards and spent a nice amount of time there while Don took notes and pictures for his report. I've always been a big fan of his cherubs, so it was a nice place place to stop and actually appreciate the art without feeling like you had to move on to the next thing. When Don was done, we were ready to go.
It took us about half-an-hour to work our way down and accross to the Pyramid exit. Along the way, we ran into Paul, who had been abandoned by his tour group at the Mona Lisa. Awww, poor Paul! We promptly lost him.
On our way to the exit, we accidentally took a wrong turn into a side gallery...and there she was, in a gallery all to hersef: the Venus de Milo. The statue was so surrounded by people that it was impossible to get any closer, but it was still amazing and armless.
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