Day Fifty: Paris, the Louvre: Year 50: 2017 Happy Anniversary!
Flash Back to the beginning of 2017:
We didn't expect it, but somehow our pilgrimage tour from Paris to Santiago de Compostella and back stands out as one of the finest. We were unexpectedly touched by the pilgrimage idea, and by the mass that is held in the Cathedral for the pilgrims. At the mass a nun with a beautiful voice is featured in the ceremony, especially when they swing the famous giant incense burner. There are lots of recordings of this. We have chosen a reasonable one, but others may have better filming or better sound.
Then of course there was (is) the 50 for 50 anniversary tour. What was that all about? Well you are in it - just go to page one and start reading again!
In 2017 Grampies cycled from Paris to Santiago de Compostella ("The Camino") and back. The sense of achievement was even more than usual.
We went to find breakfast in the, if you'll pardon the expression, café down the street. The choice seemed obvious for me - a fig, blueberry, pistachio tarte - of course. Dodie was a little more conservative, with a pistachio bun. It's cheaper if you take out than if you sit at a table. For example Dodie's hot chocolate was 2.70 as a take out and 3.50 as a sit in. Dodie tried out on the man, sitting in but with a take out cup - no deal. Even 3.50 is not so bad, once you get into it. Two years ago, when we were in Paris for a day with Joni, we were freezing and only after a while broke down and were drinking hot chocolates at 5 euros, in Galleries Lafayette.
Our corner bakery also has some interesting looking flattish breads, but we are not biting - we have scoped out some sesame and even poppy baguettes at another bakery. Tomorrow we are planning to go crazy with those and cheese from one or more cheese shops.
Today our big thing was the Louvre. To get there we jumped on the Metro. The Paris metro, which may look complicated from the map, is actually wonderfully efficient and with stations everywhere. Inside our train (but not in all trains) there is a clear map of where the thing is going and what stop is coming, plus there are multilingual announcements. With this plus the regional (RER) trains, one should be able to handily go anywhere.
As we set off on the metro, dressed in our customary yellow, we of course noticed that Parisians are not yet into fluorescent colours. The only exception may be red jeans, worn by many young men. I snapped two ladies adjacent to us on the metro. The first sported black leather pants, a bolero style hat, and very red lipstick. In general she was wearing all black, or subdued blue. The lady next to her featured a classic Paris "flitty scarf" and also was in all black or grey. If you look closely at my blurry photo, you may also see that the young guy in the red hat has rather psychedelic jeans, while behind him is a standard businessman.
The Paris Metro - looks complicated but not so hard to use
Booking.com had lured us with a rather complex scheme to buy Louvre tickets and "skip the line" by bringing a QR code they sent to the Paris Tourist Information. That required us to get off the metro one stop early and then walk the remaining distance to the Louvre. For our trouble, we think Booking charged us 17 euros instead of the standard 15 euro admission, and besides there was no line to skip. But there was an advantage. The Tourist Information is pretty much on Rue de L'Opera, which is a straight link between the Paris Opera and the Louvre. So once on that street, we thought why not walk over (the "wrong" way) towards the Opera.
This distraction spawned other distractions. First off, the street was being torn up and we were amused to see a man, clearly the architect, brandishing a blue print and remonstrating the construction staff.
Next we came to a bookstore/souvenir/map shop. Uniquely it had mostly English books. It was a chance to buy some gifts and souvenirs, but I either don't remember or am not saying what.
What next? A phenomenon maybe most often also seen in Los Angeles - dog walkers with a large number of dogs in tow. These were a bit special because they were using bikes for faster dog walking, and were taking them on bike lanes. At one point it was dogs vs. driver who was disrespecting the bike lane. I was too slow to photo this not so classic confrontation.
Now what? Rue de L'Opera has several chocolate shops. The first one was stressing the link between chocolate and romance and had some beautifully packaged love themed stuff. I pointed out a reasonably priced nice little box of truffles as something we could buy, and eat. Admittedly I did not package this as "Honey, I would like to buy you this lovely Anniversary box of truffles". (That could have worked as a way to get a quick chocolate hit.) Big mistake, because Dodie said "Here, I predicted possible chocolate whining and brought you this half bar of grocery store stuff". 50 years of marriage can play out in funny ways!
Oh yes, we did take a peek at the Opera, turned about, and marched to the Louvre.
Michelin guide books to regions of France. They also have lots of Michelin regional maps - about 5 euros each - we need to come back and scoop up a bunch. There are 73 1:150,000 scale maps to collect!
The Louvre is a series of linked very ornamental buildings with a long history of having started as a fort, then a palace, and finally as a museum. More on all that later. But the most recent, and controversial development is the glass pyramid in the centre. This forms the entrance and covers an area below with lots of guest services. When I first learned of the pyramid, or saw it in the Da Vinci Code movie, I thought it clashed mightily with the other architecture. But actually when seen in person it kind of works!
Arriving at the Louvre, we spied this outdoor gallery but never found it again
One of the things under or nearly under the pyramid is "Le Grand Louvre", the upscale restaurant offering among the Louvre food services. At 11:30, Dodie declared she was starving. With only a little grumbling about "should have gone for those truffles", we agreed that not only would we give Le Grand Louvre a try, but this could be our anniversary meal.
I went to talk to the staff to see if they were into getting service rolling, and explained what we were about. They were really tickled with the whole thing and seated us, alone in the restaurant at first.
We both chose the same main dish (normal after 50 years), while Dodie nominally got the entrée soup and I got the dessert. The savvy staff provided extra spoons and forks, because they knew we would share.
The soup, main dish, and dessert were all top quality, and we enjoyed them immensely. We had brought a candle from Canada, and the staff lighted this and brought it with the chocolate mousse and ice cream dessert. They also brought Champagne, and gathered round to sing "Happy Birthday". Well, they pretty much had the idea!
So it was Anniversary at the Louvre. Pretty sophisticated!
Now about the Louvre. Much like Fontainebleau it is a hodge podge, created as various monarchs commissioned additions and demolitions. The Revolution also chipped in, helping to turn it to a public place. And there was a major fire in 1871 which destroyed a Catherine de Medici chateau and opened the complex up on the side of the Tuileries gardens,
At first it seemed like it would be fine, because the handout map was very clear in showing all the linked buildings, and where within these buildings the nineteen or so subject matter sections were located. "Where" means in which of the three main wings and on which level. The levels on the map were labelled -2, -1, 0, 1, and 2. And oh, the Louvre sections cover Near Eastern, Egyptian, Greek, Roman, Etruscan antiquities, Islamic Art, Sculptures, and paintings from Europe up to about the 19th century. For impressionists or modern art you need to go to other Paris museums. Fine.
Because as with wine and so many other fine thing in life, we know little, we would be happy here to just see the Mona Lisa, the Venus de Milo, Liberty Guiding the People, and a few other works by Michelangelo and others that we had read about in our guide books. That should help in cutting down on walking the 17km of corridors that we knew would be needed to see everything!
We actually began in the part of the buildings where the original fort had stood. The history of the Louvre begins around 1190 with Philippe Auguste's decision to erect a fortified enclosure to protect Paris. To defend one of the weak spots in this fortification, namely its junction with the Seine, a castle was needed: as such, the Louvre was born. This was originally a relatively small fort by the river. But it was progressively developed into a royal residence. It seems to be Francois I, in the early 1500's, that developed it more into a Renaissance palace. Louis XIV lived in the Louvre until he moved to Versailles. That would be 1678. After Louis left, the monarchy lost interest in the place and it began to deteriorate. There are books (and books, and films) about the exact history, but the Louvre in short has a long record of holding art treasures, initially gathered by the French royalty.
We began our visit in the corner that had had the original fort. The curators have done a super job of preserving original walls, and of creating animated presentations showing what it was like and how it all evolved over time.
Now, as to finding the items on our humble wish list. We found the maps which look good at first actually lack needed detail. And the rooms are not well labelled as to where or what they are, in relation to the maps. Even the levels baffled us. There was usually no indication as to what level you were on. And if you found and got into an elevator, the button choices could have terms like rez de chausée haut and rez de chausée bas, entresol haut, and entresol bas. I looked up "entresol" once we got back to the hotel. It means mezzanine. Frankly we are not so sure what that really is, even in English!
The fact is, everything we found was because we located a staffer and asked directions. In two cases, they took us almost by the hand and led us to it. One lady put us in an elevator and pushed the button for us. Does that sound like doddery old people to you? I swear, it was not us!
If you follow the following photos you can wander around with us for a bit. Within our humble terms of reference, we saw a lot, and the whole experience was mind boggling!
There was a lineup for the ladies washroom. I took this to illustrate the advantage of having Dodie in yellow for locating her. Or you can call this a survey of how many in Paris wear yellow!
Mona Lisa. I did not try to make a real photo-copy since there are so many available. This is easily the most famous painting in the world. Leonardo brought it when he came to stay with Francois I. Francois loved it and featured it in his collection of paintings that became the core of the Louvre collection. Mona Lisa is Lisa de Giocondo. The French call her La Jaconde, while in Italian it would be La Gioconda. "Mona Lisa" is a contraction of the Italian for "my lady Lisa". I bought a book in the giftshop called "What's so special about Mona Lisa". I am looking forward to reading that when I get home.
With this shot I was trying to show how large Marriage at Cana is. By the way, many or most of the paintings are protected by glass, but many are not. Mona Lisa, of course, is heavily protected.
This is the famous Lady Liberty by Delacroix. In 1830 Parisians took to the streets and gave King Charles the boot, replaced with the more tractable Louis-Phillippe. The painting shows Liberty leading the people.
The Louvre has a lot of locations where souvenirs are sold. We like looking at the stuff, and spent a fair bit of time (and money). But only when we were leaving did we run into their "real" gift shops, including a whole floor of stuff (like books) on Francois I.
This area then blended out into an upscale shopping mall, featuring the Louvre branch of the department store Printemps. We were of course too weary to look at any of that by then, so we crept into the metro and retreated to our own "neighbourhood". We reverted from considering high topics in Art and History to noting that the bakery that yesterday had supplied the chocolate millefeuille had now put out pistachio and vanilla as well. Now that's progress!
Back in our own neighbourhood, where the millefeuilles selection has improved!
