We started our day by walking a few blocks towards the Eiffel Tower to catch a cab to Notre Dame Cathedral. We've averaged 25,000 steps a day for the past 9 days and our farthest point was going to be about 6k from our hotel so we made our way out by cab and walked back towards our hotel during the day. Notre Dame remains under construction since the devastating fire a few years ago. I first learned about this church on This Old House when they were inspecting the roof and talking about the potential of fire.
Next up was Saint-Chapelle which was on our Museum pass. This was another chapel that I don't think has a regular church presence. Callie wasn't impressed as she said it was just one room, but I found the stained glass to be the nicest I've seen. It surrounded the main room and was in excellent condition. They had some billboards showing the restoration process for the cathedral which includes everything from replacing damaged stone work to cleaning off grime. I'm amazed at how they use lasers to clean off dirt and grime.
We found a nice place for a traditional French breakfast. I had the crepes and Carter had a croissant which he said was the best ever. The waiters had fancy aprons and most of the seats were positioned side by side looking towards the street. It wasn't very expensive and we enjoyed the experience. I'm not sure how I feel about this no tipping your server. In some ways it's great because you don't have to see a 30% increase between taxes and tip but in other ways, you can tell they are just there to get you efficiently through which I also like. I guess I do know how I feel. I like it.
We still had a bit of time to kill before our tickets to the Louvre so we walked down from the main street to a path that runs along the Senne. The river seems quite high though I don't actually have anything to compare to. There were a few homeless people under the bridge and lots of broken Heineken bottles but otherwise it a nice walk. The amount of stonework that had to be done by hand to enclose the river as has been done is impressive. It's all very well maintained despite being hundred's of years old.
Even though we had a reserved ticket we still had to wait about 20 minutes to get into the Louvre. The ticket is when you show up to the line-up and they seem to let people inside in waves. You can technically just show up but they let the reservations in first and then let others in if there is room. The entrance is via the big glass pyramid and immediately underground is an enormous space that leads to the various wings of the museum. They did an excellent job of fitting in modern museum infrastructure into and old buildings.
The first major piece of artwork we came across was the Venus De Milo. I'm sure there is a reason something like this gets all the intention but I do find that some of the most famous pieces aren't really that impressive. There are definitely more complete and more detailed marble statues. This one was very nice but I feel there were others that deserved attention as well. I imagine it's based on who made it and when and who promoted it.
Callie and I then played a game we saw on Tik Tok described by John Green. He's the artist who wrote "The Fault in Your Stars" as well as several other books. The goal of the game is to look at a fancy painting and then determine if the artist had ever seen a baby. The example here clearly shows the artist had never actually seen a baby. This was just a chubby little man in baby scale. There are hundreds of examples of babies that look like tiny adults. We also found the game can be applied to other things like dogs and horses. We saw one picture where everything else in the painting was to scale and looked realistic and there was this after thought of a dog in the bottom that looked like it had been drawn by a child.
We did the obligatory march in front of the Mona Lisa. I suppose it's fun to think that we were in front of a painting that is known by billions and seen by millions every year. The room it's in had a roped off area with guards protecting it from tomato soup. The line up probably had 200 people in it and you got to see it for about 10 seconds before they rushed you through the exit. My one observation is that it was smaller than I was expecting by about 50%. My other observation is that they appear to have glass protecting most of the important pieces of art but not all.
The Louvre is also more than just paintings. They have many Egyptian artifacts including a mummy in a glass display case. I've seen a couple of mummies up close but this one was in much better condition and you could see very fine details for all of his body parts including his ears, fingers, nose etc. I didn't get a chance to read the tag but I'm assuming this one was real. Poor guy gets put away for eternity hoping to be awoken one day and ends up on display with millions of people staring at him every year.
Our next stop was The Orangerie Museum. This one had paintings done by Monet before he died. As far as I can tell he did them in place as the museum was built. At first I wasn't very impressed as the colors were very muted and if someone hadn't told me they were water lilies I would have had no idea. After a while though the colors grow on you. Callie informs me that the painting changes as you go as Monet was going blind and had difficulty finishing it. The room was supposed to be quiet but there were way too many people for that.
Our last museum of the day was the Musee D'Orsay. It's an old train station that has been converted into a museum. The statues here were very detailed and the architecture of the space lends itself well to a museum. The upper floors including more Monet and Van Gogh paintings. Although Starry Night is in New York we got to see one of his other Starry paintings. I think Callie said this was one of her favorite museums.
We finished the day off with dinner near our hotel.
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