Louvre

June 23 Today is our last day in Paris other than going through train stations a couple of times. There was someone on the train from Fountainbleau to Paris today checking tickets and passes. He didn't like that we hadn't signed our passes or gotten pictures. Nick had tried before at a photo booth at the train station but they seemed too big and sidn't see how to attach them to the card. so he threw his out and I di$n't bother. There went €8. But today with more instruction we tried again. The man on the train said to cut them down until they fit. luckily, I have little travel scissors I bought in Japan attatched to my purse. The first booth we tried didn't accept credit cards, only coins which we didn't have. of course we don't find out about that until the end and can't pay. we find another booth. credit cards work and we're now legal. Everytimeyou enter and exit the subwayor a bus, you tap the card and some big daddie somewhere records it all. It's in a nice plastic case to protect it. Looks like I'm in jail.

Now our day can really start. We take the subway to the Louvre and find the statue of king Louie on a horse which is where we'e to meet our guide for our tour at 1:30. Not really time to go do anything so we find a shady spot to sit and people watch. Seems it's a real thing to take your picture so it looks like your touching the tip of the pyramid. Neither of us have a great need to take such a picture.

We meet up with our guide,Eduardo, who is from Seville and has a master's in art history. There are three others in iur little group. A mother and her 18 year old son from California and a woman also from California. It would be easy to get lost in the Louvre! So many rooms and sections. It has a collection of over 40,000 items. Obviously can't do that in a day or even a week. We start in the Mesopotamia part of the museum. He shows some clay tablets that were one of the first versions of an excel spreadsheet. During the time, they remained as clay so they could be updated. There was a massive fire that was hot enough to bake them into ceramics which made it so they lasted for us to find them.

we jump ahead several hundred centuries to a room full of large paintings. Marie de Medici commissioned Reuben to do the series documenting her life. It starts with portraits of her parents with a central one of her as a young powerful woman. She’s wearing a helmet to symbolize her power. As a Medici, she has great value in marriage and politics. One painting show her portrait being shown to King Henry IV. The next is the proxy wedding. Being crowned queen. Trying to strengthen ties to Spain through marriages. Falling out with her son and the war that ensued. Without our guide, we would have walked right past this room without any knowledge of what the paintings were and the powerful, capable woman of history.

As a nod to Gay Pride month and because by this point in the tour, Eduardo knew we wouldn't be offended. This is a sculpture of a hemaphrodite taking a nap.

We ended with the must sees of Venus de Milo, Winged victory and the Mona Lisa. Of course there are so many famous paintings and sculptures at the Louvre. We’ll just have to go back a bunch more times.

We didn’t have much breakfast and didn’t have any lunch so are getting a bit peckish. We decide we want to go back to one of the restaurants that we saw yesterday on the left bank near Norte Dame. Edwardo points us in the right direction and says it’s about a 15 minute walk. We’re proud of ourselves that we actually found them back. We’re in the mood for fondue and pick one of several that offer it. The waiter is quite adamant that we want the cheese one with the mushrooms. Nick wasn’t so sure about the mushroom part but decides to all with it. It was wonderful and I dug out all the mushrooms and didn’t have to share them with Nick. I think they may have been fried in some wine before being added to the cheese as they were a bit sweet and very luscious. We were thinking about getting the chocolate fondue but our waiter was again quite adamant and said that was too much and chose a soft, creamy chocolate cake dessert for us.

Back to Fontainbleau and bed. We’re getting this travel bit down pretty well!