Today, after 10.5 weeks as a resident of Paris, I finally made my first trip to the Louvre. I appreciate most forms of art in small doses and am particularly fond of ancient and Renaissance art, and obviously the Louvre offers a lot to someone with those interests. I came prepared to be underwhelmed by the Mona Lisa and overwhelmed by the crowds. It turns out that the Mona Lisa was still exciting in person (and actually larger than I had expected, given how many people had told me that they'd found it smaller). I'm glad that I got to see it. But oh man, the crowds. I have no point of reference; this week is fall break for students of all ages everywhere in France, so it's probably the busiest week in the fall season at all of the big tourist destinations... but STILL. It is UNREAL how many people were at the Louvre today. We breezed inside with our Paris Museum Passes that allow you to cut in line, but once inside, it was an utterly overwhelming experience. There were hundreds of people just in the space under the pyramid. We grabbed maps, which were among the most useless ever created, and headed off into the wing housing the Venus de Milo and lots of other ancient art. After much blundering about - going up and down stairs (it turns out you have to go up, and then down, and then UP again to get to the "ground level" floor), we finally found made it through a hallway filled with Greek and Roman statues and then happened upon the Venus de Milo. I appreciate all statues that are that old, but I have to say that I don't really see what makes that particular statue any more special than the others surrounding it. They all strike me as being impossible feats of artistry.
We then stumbled along in the general direction (as far as we could make out on these shitty maps, which provide the number of each room but no indication of what is IN each room) of the Mona Lisa and were pleased to discover a staircase with a large picture of the Mona Lisa and an arrow. We entered a grand hallway lined with paintings, and about midway down I glanced through a doorway to the right, and there she was! The mass of people jostling for space in front of her was about 15 people deep and 15 people wide. I made it about halfway up before deciding it was not worth it and ducking out. I was pleased to see that even from that distance back I could still appreciate why this painting is special and unique; I just wish I could have been closer and able to concentrate on something more than maintaining my footing amidst the pushing! Here's the best shot I got:
After accomplishing the main objective of the day, we went back out into the main hallway to try to make some sense of the various maps. We wanted to find one other room that houses the crown jewels, and after about 10 minutes we were pretty sure we knew how to get there. We breezed back past these amazing paintings without a second glance, and I voiced my feeling of disrespect at so blatantly ignoring all of this art... but there just isn't much of a choice. Supposedly, there is enough art in the Louvre that if you spent three seconds looking at each piece, you'd need three months to get through the entire collection. Still, I had expected to see a bit more... but there are just so very many people that it is exhausting and disconcerting to be there. At any given time there must be thousands and thousands of people in the Louvre.
We did find the crown jewels, in Apollo's Gallery in the same general area as the Mona Lisa. This is a massive room that brilliantly showcases the grandeur of the Louvre as the royal palace that preceded Versailles. It's like walking into the Sistine Chapel, except with a lot more gold. It would be great to walk through the whole building just to see it as a palace. We decided to keep walking to the end of the wing in order to continue observing the architecture and decor, and by the time we reached the end, we had all maxed out on our ability to deal with being around that many people. I saw a sign for the exit and jumped at the opportunity, but we had to follow about 20 more of those signs before we finally came out again under the pyramid. Total madness! We were in there for two hours to see a total of three things.
I honestly don't know if I'll ever go back to the Louvre. My mom and I had a good laugh later this afternoon; we realized that it was our least favorite thing about Paris! I would pay a lot of money to be able to go back with greatly reduced crowds, but otherwise... I don't know. I'd suggest sticking to the Orsay and Orangerie... much more manageable!
Here are two pictures taken from inside one of the galleries. It has to be said that the Louvre has some pretty good views of Paris. You can see Notre Dame in this first one, and the second is the Pont des Arts (with all the locks).
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