Paris: Musée du Louvre by Xavier Dupuy — Day 38

“It closes in 15 minutes and we have 100,000 works of art to see … Are you happy now, dad? She’s dead.”

Did you know that if you spent 24 hours a day looking at every one of the Louvre’s 38,000 visible pieces of art for 30 seconds each, it would take you 13.2 days or 0.43 months to complete. [Show your math: 38,000/2 = 19,000 minutes of viewing. 24×60=1,440 minutes in a day. 19,000/1440=13.19] That’s just the pieces of art that are visible to the public! The Louvre actually owns about 480,000 works of art!

We woke up on Saturday excited to head to the Musée de Louvre but dreading the day’s coming heat, as the high that day would be 94 degrees Fahrenheit.

We took the metro to the Tuileries stop and walked through the Gardens to the Louvre Pyramid. There were many vendors alongside the lead-up to the pyramid and Alexander kept asking to get a mini light up Eiffel Tower (he didn’t!). Once we got there, there were SO many people waiting in line. It looked like a packed concert venue. Even though we had timed tickets, we talked about LEAVING. But after a bit of debating, we decided we would stay, as we were told the line should only take 20 minutes (but 20 minutes standing in 94 degrees is still pretty awful), but we didn’t think we would see the Mona Lisa because of all the people (foreshadowing…)

Once we got in, we got some water to cool off and talked about what we wanted to see. We agreed on some major pieces, like Winged Victory and Liberty Leading the People by Delacroix and we decided we would head in the general direction of the Mona Lisa but, as I said earlier, we didn’t actually think we would get to see the Mona Lisa due to all the people in the museum at the time.

Alexander and I really wanted audio guides, because they were Nintendo 3DS XL’s, but we couldn’t, sadly (because my parents are mean). First, we were going to see Winged Victory, the headless statue of victory, or the statue of Nike. On the way, we passed by some really funny statues, like the saytr, and the boy strangling a goose, or a duck, or something.

We walked through the galleries and arrived at Nike. I have read a lot of stories on Nike. For example, The Blood of Olympus and The Mark of Athena by Rick Riordan. Those stories feature a statue of The Athena Parthenos, which has a 6-foot-tall winged statue of Nike in Athena’s palm. I wonder if it is the same sculptor that did both of them. We may never know…

After Nike, we decided we would go to the Mona Lisa, even if it was very crowded. As we headed there we said we wanted to see the painting of Napoleon’s Coronation after the painting of the French Revolution and the Mona Lisa. Once we arrived, we saw that there was a line! We were so glad about this because that would mean we might be able to get to the front! We took pictures as we gradually made our way there, and we talked about the Mona Lisa’s smile, and how her eyes seem to follow you. Once we got to the front, yes, GOT TO THE FRONT, we had a bunch of clear shots of it. It was very cool.

After the Mona Lisa we decided to head to Liberty Leading the People. We saw some cool paintings on the way, because it’s the Louvre, of course! We arrived at Liberty Leading the People, and I took a look at the painting, but my curiosity was piqued by another painting nearby, which was of a bunch of people falling off a boat, which not only looked cool, but also had a pretty cool story about it, but I can’t really remember it. Just take my word for it.

We then began to proceed to The Coronation of Napoleon by Jacque-Louis David, again seeing some cool paintings along the way. We saw a painting of Jesus carrying his cross, some more paintings by Leonardo Da Vinci, and a statue of this one guy’s head in front of a mirror. Once we got to the Coronation painting, we admired it, Alexander took some selfies, and Alexander was nearly murdered.

After that, we passed by the statue of Nike on the way back and just admired it from afar. Then we quickly headed down to The Venus de Milo, even though we had seen it briefly without realizing that it was the Venus de Milo. I was the only one that took pictures and got up there while the rest of them stayed back and admired it in all its glory from in front of a column.

We then began to head out. We passed by some paintings and one of them was so cool. It was the Devil standing over a crack into hell. It’s called Le Pandemonium by John Martin. The description says that the “painting illustrates a scene from one of the greatest English epic poems [Paradise Lost by John Milton]. Satan has assembled his army of fallen angels before the huge palace of Pandemonium, built by the demons.”

Once we got to the upside-down pyramid, I was amazed. We had seen The Da Vinci Code movie a few days earlier, and I loved the final scene of the movie. It was so cool!

So that about sums up our trip to the second-biggest museum in the world, The Louvre (the first is the Hermitage in St. Petersburg, Russia). I totally recommend going, and now that there is a line for the Mona Lisa, don’t pass on it because you think it will be too crowded!