After
talking until 2am with Nazih we were up at 8 and getting ready to head into
Paris to the Louvre museum. We had been briefed by Nazih on how to
negotiate the bus, suburban train and metro system and had no
problems getting all the way in. The first bus driver waved aside our
offer to pay and at the train we bought a day ticket (5 zone €13.65
ea) for today and one for tomorrow as well when we plan to 'do' the
other touristy things in Paris. We got out of the metro right under
the Louvre and found a line stretching through the whole of the huge
shopping centre we were in.
All
the museums of Paris are free on the first sunday of every month,
although entry for us would have been free anyway. Luckily we don't
have to wait in any lines and just went up to the front and they
waved us on through, a bit like being royalty really. Kent had his
leg on today but is still experiencing problems, the bugger has been
eating lots of (very cheap) camembert cheese and fatty spicey
chorizos and has put on weight, looks great but his stump no longer
fits his prosthesis properly. Again he got to wheely through the
halls of the Louvre in a wheelchair, the lift system was a bit
annoying at times but we got to visit just about all of it.
We
started at the top floor and worked our way down, the crowds go
straight to see the Mona Lisa then wander that floor mostly so the
crowds up top weren't too bad. However the place is so huge that
after just looking at that floor we had had enough of art to last a
lifetime. We had purchased audio guides (€6) but didn't find them
that good really, each main gallery has information in english etc
that you can read. While negotiating the lift system we got to see
parts of other floors just trying to get from one place to another.
We of course joined the masses in viewing the Mona Lisa and Kent was
allowed into the hallowed empty 10 foot people free zone in front of
her for his own private viewing, we'll need a wheelchair for his head
soon.
One
exhibition was odd, it had old paintings then suddenly a photo, of an
out of focus guy on a mattress on the floor or a nude guy or a woman
laughing, quite out of context. Maybe just making sure we were still
awake.
Next
it was Phonecian artifacts from Iran which we have seen before in the
British museum and down to the basement to see the original walls of
the fortress that was built and buried on the site long before the
Louver was even imagined. We walked in the excavated area that used
to be the moat between the old fortress walls and an outer wall, very
interesting and only discovered in the 1980's.
To
see our photos http://cjb.pascoe.net.nz/
(click on or copy and paste into browser)
