Paris Day Five: The Louvre

In order to see as much as humanly possible our final day, we packed up early and left our bags in the hotel lobby for the day. Then we hopped on the Metro to get to The Louvre before it opened. Apparently we weren't the only ones with that idea. It wasn't even open and the line was already long. Once the doors opened, the line moved quickly. They didn't even make us do the security check. We were thankful for the relatively short wait since it was rainy, very windy and 39 degrees!

The Louvre was built in 1190 as a fortress but was transformed in a palace in the 17th century. In 1682, Louis XIV moved to Versailles and became an art academy. It officially became a museum in 1793, closed three years later, and then was reopened by Napoleon in 1801.

As soon as we got in we followed the signs straight to the most famous painting in the world in hopes to catch a glimpse of her close up. It was so hard not to get distracted by all the stunning and magnificent art along the way, but we did it!

There was a bit of a crowd but we were able to get pretty close...

Yup, she's pretty small from the other side of the room...

It must be hard to be the painting opposite Mona Lisa...

Then it was the mad rush to see as many of the world's most famous works of art as quickly as possible. We saw, but didn't get pics, because of the crowds, of the most of the most famous works. I'm just glad we got to see them. 

Don't worry we got plenty of pictures of less famous works of art... ;) 

We even got to see people painting paintings...

I felt giddy just walking through and seeing things that I had only seen in pictures. It was like walking through my co-op classes in real life. :) 

Many depicted stories from the Bible, history, or mythology. 

Even the building itself is a spectacular work of art. Both outside and inside...

I found myself taking a lot of pictures of the ceilings...

More art...

The Maesta was painted in 1280 and I've been showing

pictures of it in my medieval history class for about 20 year. 

I was more than a little excited about seeing it in person! 

Even the tiny paintings under the big painting were amazing!

This painting of Satan and his demon armies was so creepy,

unusual and yet so detailed and magnificently done.

And while seeing all the art from the Middle Ages and Renaissance seemed so old, then we got to the REALLY old art...

the detail on this sarcophagus was unbelievable!

they consider these mummified cats the first "stuffed animals"

I know because I had just taught a class about them. I showed

my kids a picture of this in class. 

It wasn't until we went to leave that we realized how truly GINORMOUS The Louvre really is. We got a bit turned around. There is even a shopping mall in the basement!