Day 7: Museum Day

For today, we decided to make the most out of the 2-day museum pass that we purchased and hit all the remaining museums that we wanted to visit while in Paris. Of course, the most important museum is the Louvre. Before going to the Louvre however, we first took the “The Da Vinci Code” walk around Paris which took us from the Ritz Hotel, to the Opera House, Vendome, Troullieres Garden, and finally to the Louvre via the arch. Overall, the walk was roughly 30 minutes.

The Louvre is an enormous museum – going through everything will probably take a visitor several days. It is broken up into different themed collections however, and the most important and also most popular is the collection of Italian paintings, which forms the backbone of the Louvre collections. Of course, that is where the Mona Lisa hangs.

We bought audio guides before going around the museum, which are absolutely helpful if you’re not going on a tour group. Audio guides contain commentary on selected pieces of work around the exhibit, usually the most important or interesting ones. They give the visitor more information surrounding the artwork and sometimes trivia about the context of the times when the artwork was created.

Some of the most recognizable pieces of art we saw were: The Victory of Samarthace (a sculpture of Athena standing on a ship, found headless); the Mona Lisa by Leonardo da Vinci; the Wedding at Cana by Veronese; and other paintings by da Vinci, Gericault, Delacroix, Picasso, and many more who helped define the art of the last millennium. The large format paintings were especially impressive; standing about 10×10 meters, these paintings took several years to finish each.

After going through the Italian paintings, we took a short tour through the Egyptian collection (although I found the one at the British Museum more fascinating) and the ancient Louvre. Afterwards, we went outside to a cheerfully sunny afternoon and we sent out for St. Chapelle.

The church at Sainte Chapelle is very popular for its stained glass windows. It is also a popular venue for classical concerts. It is a very small church, and we had to line up for almost an hour before we got inside. Once inside though, our wait was immediately justified as we viewed the large and very beautiful stained glass windows surrounding the church. Our stay here was a short one, and once we were satisfied with pictures we left for our next destination for the day.

Now, a word about the French museum pass – it may be extremely convenient for the serious museum goer around Paris, but it’s actually pretty hard to use in a worthwhile manner. The museum pass is 30 euro for 2 days, and 45 euros for 4 days – and with each museum we had visited (St. Chapelle included) costing somewhere between 9 and 12 euros each, our grand total was roughly 29 euros after 3 museums, and our second day running out. With a few hours left to use the pass, we decided to go to the Centre Pompidou in Les Halles, which was a relatively short walk away.

Before going to the Pompidou, we got sidetracked by Les Halles – it’s a very bustling area with narrow streets and sidewalk shops. The feel is very different from the touristic areas of Paris, and it feels very authentic, with more Parisians being in the streets than foreigners. We decided to take note of the area for further investigation, then walked to the Centre Pompidou located within les Halles.

The Centre Pompidou is a very interesting building – very modern, very design-oriented, and very different from the rest of Paris. This immediately struck our interest as we entered the Centre. The top floor made for a great view around les Halles and the Paris skyline. The Centre itself is a museum dedicated to modern art. The art we found here were in very different forms – I’m not even nuanced enough to describe them (just view the pictures) – but we found the permanent exhibit much more fascinating than the ones we viewed at Tate Modern. Some of the exhibit pieces, you’d even like to display in your house! Mench especially liked this museum very much.

After leaving the Pompidou, we met up with the brother of our Parisian friend Vincent who is living in Manila. Olivier also lived in the Les Halles area, so it was again a short walk towards his apartment. We really wanted to meet up with locals and experience an authentic Parisian dinner, away from the tourist traps. Olivier brought us to a Parisian bar where we had dinner and wine with authentic French food. It was great food, and we got a taste for the local Parisian life! We swapped stories and although Olivier wasn’t used to speaking in English (and we knew no French) we got understood each other well enough to tell stories and enjoy our time together.

After dinner and a short walk around Les Halles, we bid Olivier au revoir and went back to the Metro to go home. Mench and I fell asleep within minutes of entering our hotel room. It was the end of another long, tiring, but fun and enriching day.

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