Christmas in Paris Day 3: the Louvre

Clark and MJ truly shocked us with their enthusiasm to go to the Louvre.  Clark was particularly excited as he had just finished reading “The Da Vinci Code.”  He found the book fascinating and was so excited to see the real Mona Lisa.  While it was really tempting for Sean and I to plan the entire day in the museum we decided it would be best to pick 2 “must sees” in the museum and plan the visit around those.  For Clark it was the Mona Lisa, for me Venus de Milo and Sean wanted to see ancient sculptures (very easy to accommodate it turns out).  So, we were off.  If you go to Paris, get the museum pass at the tourist information center.  The line for the Louvre tickets by 10am (late start after a late night) was over 2 hours long and then once you get the ticket you had to stand in line with the other ticket holders.  That museum pass was awesome, by the time we finished our Starbuck’s coffee we were inside.

You are allowed to take photos in the Louvre,which is great, because that way you can just see the pictures instead of me writingabout all of the great works of art that we saw.  Clark and MJ were actually really good about how long it took to get through.  MJ, my little art lover, was the first one to tire.  After lots of statues (about 1.5 hours) she decided she was tired of white and wanted to some color, so we headed over to the paintings with the last ones on the list being the Mona Lisa and the Coronation of Napoleon.  We did let the kids listen to the Rick Steves description on the coronation of Napoleon and they finally understood, fully, what a megalomaniac he really was.  The painting shows the Pope who was there to crown him, giving his blessing while sitting down because Napoleon actually crowned himself; although the painting shows him crowning the queen.  For the complete story and history of this double coronation see the Louvre description, it is fascinating! 

The kids also spent a lot of time getting used to seeing all of the body parts on display, especially the statues by Michelangelo.  It was rather amusing when Clark asked me "why don't they just put an apron on him?"  I think that by the end of the day they were a little desensitized although they still questioned the wisdom of nudes, we didn't hear about it constantly.  

After dinner we decided we needed to get a crepes and the best ones were near Notre Dame, so we enjoyed the cathedral at night with all of the lights.  Clark pointed out the plaque in the square that is the central point of Paris, he learned about this reading the Da Vinci Code (a few nuggets of truth to be gleaned from that book).