We decided to visit the Louvre on Friday on the assumption that it would be more crowded over the weekend. We took the Metro to the Palais Royale/Musee du Louvre station, which comes out into a mall. We found the Carousel du Louvre entrance at about 9:30AM. To our surprise and delight, there was no line. We had our Museum passes so we didn’t have to buy tickets and the security check was fast.

We found ourselves in the main underground courtyard where we saw the bottom of the pyramid. We also felt overwhelmed by the size of the museum.

Bottom of Louvre Pyramid

Rebecca wanted to see the Egyptian antiquities, and I mistakenly thought they were in the Denon Wing. We found Egyptian antiquities, but they were from the Greek and Byzantine periods. Still, it was very interesting, and when we wandered over to the Richelieu Wing, we did find some sphinxes and other Egyptian statues.

Eventually we stumbled across the famous Venus de Milo, in all her armless glory. The statue really is magnificent. A crowd surrounded her, the first one we’d seen that morning, since we had decided to skip the Mona Lisa.

The famed Venus de Milo

Right after the Mona Lisa, my camera battery died, so I switched to the iPad. Thank goodness I’d brought it with me! The iPad is more cumbersome to use and carry, but it takes great photos, sometimes better than my Nikon!

Next stop was the Roman galleries where we saw an amazing room with a huge mosaic floor and a tall pediment. Through a window, I got a great picture of a courtyard that I think of more as a sculpture garden.

By 11:30 we were tired and hungry, but lost, with no idea of how to find Cafe Richerlieu. After lots of wandering and asking for directions that we only half understood, we finally found the cafe. Since we were early and it wasn’t crowded, we lucked into a table by the window where we had this view. We could see the main ticket offices and the lines were surprisingly short!

We were happy to sit and relax over lunch. Rebecca splurged on fois gras and champagne, while I ordered Croque Monsieur, basically an open-face grilled ham and cheese sandwich. The food was delicious, and even though we were stuffed, we ordered dessert, too, including hot chocolate for me. (The French make the best hot chocolate I’ve ever had, basically molten chocolate with whipped cream on the side.) This raspberry dessert was delicious. The little round thing on the top is a raspberry macaron.

To be ontinued next week.

Linda