Day 8: The Louvre

I know we had Baby with us, but what's a Paris trip if you don't go to The Louvre?

We had to make a beeline for the entrance into The Louvre first. 

Uncle Google had advised me to go via the Porte des Lions entrance after alighting from the Underground. 

I was amazed at the vastness of the place when I entered the ticketing area. 

There were many ticketing machines but most people were queueing up at the counters.

Needless to say, I joined one of the queues.

I underestimated the hugeness of The Louvre and bought the 15 euro ticket which consisted of the temporary exhibits, which we didn't have the time or energy to go for.

I didn't bother with the multi-media guides as I have learnt that most of the time, they are useless, to me at least. 

We grabbed a map at the ticketing area and zoomed in to the main attractions.

Given that The Louvre has 3 wings (Richelieu Wing, Denon Wing and Sully Wing), and 4 floors at each wing, we went for the Mona Lisa portrait straight away.

Winged Victory

Even the ceiling was beautifully adorned with paintings

I was amazed that wood could also be a canvas for painting

When something you saw in a book comes alive in front of your eyes ... 

We searched high and low for this world-famous. We went to the end of the wing and back and could not find it. Then we realised that it was in one of the rooms at the side of the wing.

And the crowd was crazy.

You see the worst of Europeans here. How they pushed and shoved just to take a picture of Mona Lisa!

I took a quick pic of the crazy crowd at Mona Lisa. 

The portrait is at the left-hand side of the picture while the crowd was at the right. Yes, all of them were there for the picture.

There were some men standing in front of the picture to prevent the crowd from getting too close to it.

Everytime you are pushed, you inched forward to the front, until you get to the frontline, and take as many pictures as you want before you get out of the line and hold your peace forever.

You could hear young girls in their early twenties lamenting,"Just take a picture and go. How hard is that!" "This is crazy!"

A girl who appeared like an America-born Chinese saw Baby and commented to her friend,"There's a baby! It's crazy to bring a baby here! She's going to get squashed!"

Coco later told me that the girl left with her friend after her friend was apparently exasperated by the crowd,"Jamie, let's go! I can't take this anymore!"

I had to try my best to 'interest' Baby, who by then was pleading with us to go.

Coco could not stop laughing as I requested her to help me take a picture with the biggest bird around.

Coco and her Greek mythological figure

A man imitated the figure by holding up his mobile, but I was too slow to capture that.

Psyche and Cupid 

Venus de Milo

Athena, Coco's favourite Greek goddess

Had to take a tourist shot before it poured

We went back to a nearby bistro to have our dinner

half a dozen of escargot

foie gras

garlic soup. Eeeks!

The escargot was quite meaty

We loved the duck confit

Coco could not get enough of crepes! Even their sugar crepes was delicious! 

We spent some 70 euro on a meal like that.