Europe Trip - Day 2 (12-Sept-2012)

Day 2 - Louvre, Notre Dame, Arc de Triomphe ( Paris, France )

After a good night’s rest we were all set to visit Louvre Museum today. Long before our trip we had planned to allocate today for visiting Louvre mainly because the museum is open till 9 pm on Wednesdays. This way we could rest for a bit longer to shake off the tiredness accumulated from our travel and yesterday’s sightseeing. The Paris public transport system website was of immense help to figure out the best possible route to reach Louvre.
The Louvre palace was the seat of French power until King Louis XIV moved to Versailles in 1682. It has housed the famous Musee du Louvre and various government departments since 1789.

We left our hotel around 9.30 am after a heavy breakfast and took bus route #72 to reach the rear end of the Louvre Palace. We were thinking the Pyramid marked the entrance of the museum. But this entrance didn’t have any semblance of it. In fact once we entered there was a vast open square enclosed by a palatial structure. We just chose to proceed in the direction of a pointed out by a kind gentleman on the bus. After a short walk we finally saw the structure that looked very familiar from a distance and within a few seconds we recognized the iconic pyramid that stands outside the Louvre museum. The next thing we could see was long serpentine queue for purchasing entry tickets and another long queue for gaining entry! We chuckled at each other since we already had purchased a Paris museum pass (bundled along with the Paris Passport Pass). Since there is a separate entrance for pass holders we could skip the long queue and thereby saving atleast an hour and half in the process. We entered the pyramid and proceeded down into the central area of the museum.

Before coming to Paris my wife had done some study on the internet to check the most important artifacts to see. We read that even to have a cursory look at all the artifacts would take weeks together. Therefore we narrowed down on a list of ten artifacts which are a “must-see”. We picked up a map from the help desk and along with a printout of a guest trail, we started our journey of the museum.

The first entry we were looking for is the Aphrodite or Statue of Venus. Unfortunately we were so caught up with the artifacts on the way, especially the grandly painted and gold adorned ceilings, we lost our way completely. We somehow managed to enter a room with a collection of bronze items varying from armours to cutlery. We took a few snaps and proceeded without really understanding that fact that we had already drifted off our course. We wandered for a short while before reaching a really crowded area. We immediately sensed that it is an important place because of the number of tour groups nestled around in that area. So moving in the direction of the commotion and we hit one of the items in our list – Statue of Nike, The Winged Victory of Samothrace. Not to mention headless as well.

The winged victory of Samothrace

At this point we realigned ourselves using the signboards to reach Monalisa and proceeded towards her. On the way we passed through a one room filled with paintings of Christ. One painting caught our eye and hearts as well. We took a picture of the painting and a placard placed next to it with information about the artist (which was in French). With the help of Google we found out that the painting is called “Christ Carrying the Cross” by Lorenzo Lotto, an Italian Painter of the 16^th century. Words cannot do justice, so here is a picture of it!

Lorenzo Lotto's "Christ Carrying the Cross"

Closer look at "Christ Carrying the Cross"

The increasing decibel level once again suggested that we have neared Monalisa. We reached the densely crowded room housing Monalisa. People trying to take a picture of Monalisa were standing in a in a big cluster occupying half the room. She was roughly at a 25 feet viewing distance from where we were standing. And as we stood wondering how to even approach her to take a snap and have a brief look; we could see a smaller crowd behind us. For a moment we turned back and we saw a huge painting covering the entire wall. We were staring at the Wedding Feast at Cana, a painting depicting the first miracle by Jesus of turning water into wine. This painting by the late Renaissance Italian painter, Paolo Veronese is the largest painting in the collection at the Louvre.

The Wedding Feast at Cana

The crowd was trying to clicks of the wedding feast was lesser when compared to Monalisa. So we tried to take a few pictures but the painting was so big that our humble camera’s lens couldn’t capture it well.

After we got a closer look at the Wedding Feast, we turned around to attempt to jump into the crowd and swim across to reach Monalisa. Lifting my camera as high as possible to avoid interference from other people trying to take pictures I started taking pictures. The Monalisa painting was well protected inside a glass enclosure and the viewing of the painting was restricted at a distance of about 10 ft ( only persons on a wheelchair could get closer). This was the only painting with such security measures. The crowd that gathered around the painting was so overwhelming that we couldn’t stand to have a closer look. There was always one patiently waiting tourist trying to move closer to take snaps. We were very curious to see Monalisa up close to see if we can see if we reason out why she is probably so hugely celebrated. From the distance that we viewed her and with the glass enclosure we couldn’t quite get the feel of the painting. Trying to take a photo with Monalisa in the background was literally impossible with the crowd around it.

The lady protected by glass !

The crowd photographing MonaLisa

After spending a good amount of time we left the room and as we were leaving we found a small brochure with a write up on Leonardo Da Vinci. And we read that there were four more exhibits of Leonardo Da Vinci in the museum. So we went back in search of those. Our search lead us back in the path and on one of the corridors we found 4 more paintings of Da Vinci which were definitely not known to us. The first of the four works of Da Vinci on display was La Belle Ferronière or the Portrait of Unknown Woman. Her eyes were filled with mystery and unlike Monalisa her features were sharper. 

La Bella Ferroniere

The next painting adjacent La Bella was the “Virgin and Child with St. Anne” a painting depicting Virgin Mary and Infant Jesus.

Virgin Mary and Infant Jesus

The next painting of Da Vince we saw on the corridor was what is considered as his last painting - St. John the Baptist. It was a painting set in a dark background with St. John portrayed with an enigmatic smile.

St John the Baptist

The last painting we saw was Bacchus, which may have been painted by Da Vinci or one of his followers. The origin is not clearly known.

Bacchus

After that interesting piece of history we went back to our original trail. Our next stop was at another massive painting – “Coronation of Napoleon” by Jacques-Louis David. We thought that the wedding feast had already made our camera look ridiculously ordinary, but this made it look even worse. It was another colossal painting with incredible details. My estimate would be that the painting had alteast hundred people in them. It is said to be almost 10mtrs wide and 6 mts tall.

We glanced at our watches and we had spent close to two and half hours already. Our legs were feeling a slight soreness now and my wife already had a slight ankle injury which I suspect she might have picked up during the flight. So we chose to take a break and sat in one of sofas kept right opposite the “Coronation of Napolean”. We couldn’t stop but staring at the incredible painting without winking an eyelid. It was so grand and magnificent, 

Coronation of Napolean

After a 5 min break we started off once again, in search of Aphrodite, which was actually first in our list. This time with a clear idea using the Louvre map we chalked out our route. But once again on the way we stumbled upon 2 more entries in our list of artifacts that we had in our list.

First to spot was the Oath of Horatii, another painting by Jacques-Louis David, depecting a Roman legend.

Oath of Horatii

On a nearby wall adjacent one of a big door we saw the other painting – “Grande Odalisque”, a female slave by Jean Auguste Dominique Ingres.

Grande Odalisque

We made our way down the ground floor finally making our way to see the statue of Venus de Milo. The marble sculpture believed to be the Greek goddess of love stands 6ft tall. It is prominently marked by absence of its hand which was never found.

Venus de Milo

Walking inside the same room we came across several marble sculptures.

We finally we made our way to next of the two artifacts in our list, “Cupid’s Kiss”, a marble sculpture by Antonio Canova.This depicts the story of Cupid and his lover Psyche. Venus, the mother of Cupid demands Psyche to bring a flask from Proserpina and forbids her to open it. She gets curious and falls unconscious as soon as she inhales the flask. Cupid touches her with the tip of his arrow and revives her.

Psyche revived by Cupid's Kiss

The next and last on the list was Michaelangelo’s Slaves, which is a set of 2 sculptures depicting slaves. The 2 slaves depict contrasting emotions. 

The Dying slave

The Rebellious slave

At this point we checked our list and were pretty satisfied that we have seen the all the artifacts we wanted to see. And we were tired as well. So we were back out at the Pyramid and took a few snaps in front of the Pyramid. 

Outside the Museum

Enjoying a quick Crepe

Our stomachs were rumbling by now and it was past lunch time at 3.30 pm. So we stopped near our hotel to have a quick bite for lunch. Once again we chose to eat banana chocolate crepe. We spent a quiet 30 mins in a park near Eiffel having our crepes.

We got back to the hotel room by 4 pm or so feeling quite tired. We chose to rest for a while before starting out on the next leg of sightseeing. This time it was to visit Notre Dame Cathedral. We checked the timing and found that the entry to the towers of the cathedral close 5.45pm. So we were running a bit late to make it on time to climb the towers. So we quickly freshened up and started off. This time we need to take a metro and connect to a RER line to reach Notre Dame. When we reached it was close to 5.15 pm and as usual a big crowd greeted us. We made a tactical mistake of taking a tour of the Cathedral first before proceeding to the towers. This way we lost 20 mins which meant that by the time we reached the towers the entry was closed for the day.

Stained Glass inside Notre Dame

The Notre Dame (meaning “Our Lady of Paris”) Cathedral built in 14^th century was ancient and beautiful to say the least. We were mesmerized by the stained glass art and the various other paintings and artifacts. It was dimly lit, so we couldn’t get bright photographs as usage of flash was strictly prohibited.

Notre Dame Cathedral - Front view

Notre Dame Cathedral - Side view

Enjoying a quiet dinner

As the towers were closed for the day, we decided to wander around Notre Dame. We saw some good souvenir shops, stopped by one of them and picked up a few small souvenirs. The guy at the counter was Indian and spoke to us in Tamil ! He gave a discount of 2-3 euros and some freebies as well. We made the mistake of not picking all of the intended souvenirs (which we finally did the next day). We next went in search of a falafel joint – Maoz – recommended by a friend. Though we saw the location on google maps before we left, the area was a maze of restaurants and cafes and we were lost! Being very tired, we stopped over at a café for a very yummy pizza and rose wine.

Arc de Triomphe

This was a very packed day and our next hop was the Arc de Triomphe. We had read that it is open till 10pm, so we were very hopeful. After a short metro ride, we were at Champs Elysees.

The Arc honors those who died for France in the French Revolution and the Napoleonic Wars, with the names of all French victories and generals inscribed on its inner and outer walls. Beneath its vault lies the Tomb of the Unknown Soldiers from World War I, with the eternal flame dedicated to the unidentified soldiers of the First World War The structure and reason behind erecting it reminded us of the India Gate back home. And India gate is indeed inspired by Arc de Triomphe which in turn is inspired by the Roman Arch of Titus!  We decided to have a go at climbing the 284 winding and dimly lit steps and up the tower. The entry to the top was covered by the museum pass.

Winding steps

We are here !!

View from Top of Arc de Triomphe

It was a cold and windy night on the top, with some good views of Paris, a well-lit Champs Elysees and Eiffel Tower. After a while, we headed down to head back to the hotel after a really long day. On the way back we were so tired and in such a hurry to get back our cozy beds that we boarded a train which unfortunately stopped half way. And the train didn't show any signs of proceeding further when a hurried announcement in French blared. After a few minutes of discussion we got down and tried to figure out the what has to done next. We walked down to the end of the train to enquire with the driver and he in pointed out to the next platform. And as we hurried to the next platform we realized we were on the right track when we finally saw a display. Immediately we heard the rumbling of a train into the platform and we started to rush. We were shocked a bit when a huge dog (probably the size of a calf) ran past us along with its owner. We managed to finally board the train to connect to the metro. We will never the station name - Invalides (Pronounced very differently in French)

On the metro ride back to the hotel, it was 10pm and we saw the Eiffel glitter again ! It was a mesmerizing sight. We reached the hotel and crashed after a mental preparation to wake up a bit late as we had another long and tiring day planned next.




-- Yes & Why