Paris- Day 4

Day 4 was dedicated to the Louvre. I felt like pinching myself when we stepped into the courtyard with the glass pyramids. The Louvre! Amazing!This is a seriously huge art gallery. There is no way to see everything there in one day unless you literally ran through it. The pyramid is surrounded by three large wings of the gallery, each with 4 floors! Really huge!

When we got in, we looked at the map and chose a game-plan. We wanted to see the Mona Lisa of course, and then make our way to Pharaonic Egypt, and finish up with 18-19th century French paintings and sculptures. It really was just a fraction of what was there.

We thought it would be best to go to the Mona Lisa first, to avoid the bigger crowds later. It was so surreal stepping out of the elevator, walking into the next room, and there she was. There was already a huge crowd in the room, so we basically took a photo and got out of there. I call this photo, "Tim and Mona."The Mona Lisa was in a wing of French and Italian paintings from the 15th-17th centuries... a lot of "flying babies with wings" paintings, as Ethan refers to them. We made our way over to the Egypt wing, stopping to see The Winged Victory of Samothrace, and Venus de Milo on the way.The Egyptian wing was remarkable, with many ancient artifacts, hieroglyphics, tombs, etc. Really incredible!! This is the Seated Statue of Ramses II.We went to another wing with 18th-19th century French paintings, and were refreshed by a few Monets and other Impressionist works. Then after lunch, we finished up our time with French sculptures. At that point, we were officially Louvred-out!

I was astonished that we actually got a nice family photo as we were leaving. Maddie actually cooperated, and the French stranger who took our photo knew what he was doing. This one is definitely getting framed.
After the Louvre, we decided to get back on the Metro to go see the Arc de Triomphe. Again, it was so surreal stepping out of the subway, and there it was. The Arc de Triomphe was in the middle of a HUGE round-about, quite busy with traffic. We kept looking around wondering how people had gotten over to it. We saw a few crazy people actually cross the street, but there was no way we were doing that with kids. Finally, after walking about a third of the way around, we saw a sign that there was a tunnel underground that you could walk through to get to it.... exactly back where we started. So, we walked all the way back, and then under the street to it. The Arc de Triomphe was pretty neat. It was built in the early 1800s to honor those who had fought for France, particularly during the Napoleonic wars. You could pay extra to walk up to see the view from the top. We just decided to enjoy it from the bottom.

We finished up day four by finding a few souvenirs for the kids, trying out French fast food, and heading back to the apartment to rest and start packing up.