the Louvre

The Louvre. Where do I start?

In my opinion, the grandest museum of them all. The oldest museum in Europe, it contains some of the most recognizable art in the world under its roof. And trust me, it's a big roof, covering over 652,000 square feet! So much to see and so little time.

The Louvre contains prodigious paintings...

spectacular sculptures...

and ancient artifacts.

Of course, the Louvre contains the most famous painting of all, The Mona Lisa.

In person, it's not really that big, but it's still extremely popular.

The Louvre also contains two of the most famous sculptures in the world, Venus de Milo and Winged Victory.

After Michelangelo's David, I think Winged Victory is the most impressive statue I've seen in person.

The Louvre also provides an opportunity to tour the apartments of Napoleon III. Can you find Maria?

Here are a few of our favorite, but less famous, pieces.





One of the most fascinating pieces in the museum is actually two paintings. These paintings are hung back-to-back. One painting depicts the front of a scene with David about to cut off Goliath's head. The second painting depicts the back of the same scene. Pretty clever!


I'm standing in front of the top of a column from the audience hall of the palace of Darius I. You may be familiar with King Darius, he's the guy that threw Daniel into the lion's den.

Baby Jesus was one of the favorite subjects for many paintings. For some reason, the painters of old really struggled to paint babies. I'm not even sure if a mother could love these babies.


Naked ladies were another favorite subject. Here are two of the more famous naked lady paintings that you're ever going to find.

Here is a brick panel from the city of Babylon constructed during the time of King Nebuchadnezzar, another one of Daniel's friends.

Made you blink.



If you ever have the opportunity to visit the Louvre, we highly recommend it. But we must warn you, it's amazing how sore your feet will become after walking around any museum for several hours. We've walked miles on ancient cobblestone streets and hiked miles through the Alps, but my feet are always more sore after walking through a museum! Must be the slow shuffling.

Even with sore feet, you should put the Louvre on your bucket list!

Paris Again

We first visited Paris on Valentine's Day 2009. In case you don't remember this earlier trip, click here for a refresher. However, since the weather was dreadfully cold during this visit, we decided to make another trip when the weather was a bit warmer.

If you clicked on the above link, you probably noticed that we took lots of pictures with the Eiffel Tower, but we did not actually go up the Tower. On this trip, we made it our goal to go up the Tower! As we walked from our hotel to the Eiffel Tower, we stumbled across the Royal Palace Gardens.

The garden was so relaxing that we decided to sit and take a break in the shade.

Since Paris is a very "artsy" city, I also stumbled across some art.

Upgrading my picture partner.

Needless to say, the weather was much warmer on this trip than our previous visit. The fountains outside the Louvre looked so refreshing that we decided to take another break and stick our feet in the water.



After walking along the Seine River, for what felt like several miles, we finally made it to the Eiffel Tower.

Somehow, I was able to talk Maria into climbing the tower! Based on her big smile, I think I took this picture of her on the way down.

The tower actually has three levels. This picture was taken on the first level, about one-fourth of the way to the top, but lots of steps from the ground.

After we finally made it to the second level, about half-way to the top.

Fortunately, the views of the city made it a fantastic place to take a long break!

We were both happy to be able to take a break and enjoy the amazing views.

Maria is trying to point at a person on the ground to give you an idea of the view from the tower. The people looked like ants.

As you can see, we were still a long way from the top. Unfortunately, the elevator line to the top was extremely long, so we decided to skip the very top.

After descending the tower, we hopped on the subway to Montemarte in order to catch the sunset over the city. In order to reach the Sacre-Coeur for the best views of the city, we had to climb a few more steps.

The extra climbing was well worth the effort.

After a good night's sleep, we had planned for the next two days of our trip to be spent exploring the city's many museums. As we attempted to purchase a two-day museum pass, the store clerk informed us that all museums would be closed the following day due to Labor Day! This was an inconvenient surprise, but even more puzzling, since the next day was a Sunday. As a result, the only museum we were able to visit was the Louvre. We need a whole blog post just to share all of our Louvre pictures, so I'm going to skip ahead to our last day in Paris.

Outside the Notre-Dame cathedral.

Inside the Notre-Dame cathedral.

The cathedral's twin towers and the "Kings of Judah" statues. These statues represent the biblical kings of Judah, but were mistaken for the French kings during the French Revolution. Keeping with the guillotine craze of the day, the citizens stormed the cathedral and decapitated each of the kings.

Maria enjoying the cathedral's flying butresses.

Some very Parisian-looking apartments.

We quickly realized that the French Labor Day was a blessing in disguise, because we were really able to enjoy and experience the ambience of the city. Here, Maria is demonstrating how to best enjoy the ambience of the Tuileries Garden.

Maria took this picture from the Louvre courtyard, one of our favorite spots to relax in Paris.

Finally, we also relaxed by the Seine River with one of Maria's Parisian friends, Elo.

Catch your breath, because the Louvre blog is next...