Managed to sleep in again today, despite the racket outside of the dump trucks. We decided that we would visit places based on the weather. If it was nice, where would you go? Outside right? So we thought we'd go to The Louvre instead. Bad idea. The queues were insanely long. One cue for tickets, one to get security checked, another line for presold tickets... Thought better of it and headed to Saint Chapelle instead. We lined up at 12.27pm only to discover that it was closed between 1-2.15pm, last entry at 12.30pm. Notre Dame here we come. (third time lucky?)
We visited the crypt at Notre Dame which houses ruins and artifacts. I must admit that I was beginning to feel like I'd had my share of history about now.
Notre Dame is gorgeous though, like most other churches, cathedrals and basilicas.
Had time for a quick bite and lined up for Saint Chapelle. There were two lines, one for the the public and one for tour groups. We heard one of the ladies in the tour group say that the lines joined at the front for security check so they should just push their way in, no time to be polite. How Rude! Game on. Saint Chapelle isn't a very big church but it is very colourful. It was being restored/cleaned, which was going to take three years. Quite an intricate process to clean and repair the stained glass windows.
You can seen how worn the artwork is.
The floor
On the way to find some proper lunch, we saw a pretty fountain with a group of people gathering around the bottom. There was music being played and it seemed like a wee party on the street. Wrong. Looking closer, there were a dozen police vans, an ambulance and a whole lot of armed police with shields lining up along the bridge. Light bulb - protest.
Needless to say, we headed in the other direction for lunch. It started raining while we were having lunch (no surprises there) and when we came out, the rain had scared off the protesters and the police were nowhere to be seen. How important was the cause after all we wondered?
Finally we made it to The Louvre. It's late night on Wednesday and Thursday and all our mucking around paid off as there were no cues for tickets, and only a handful of people in front of us at security. Off to see the main attractions first; Mona Lisa and Venus de Milo.
The one and only... and it's much smaller than I thought it would be, but still protected behind some very thick glass.
Venus de Milo
A few other popular views were:
Winged victory
Cupid and Psyche
Napoleon III apartments.
Then of course there are the glass pyramid and inverted glass pyramid at The Louvre:
Anyone seen The da Vinci Code?
There was a concert in the square outside the Louvre but we never worked out who the artists were. Took some photos and video but don't recognise the performers.
So that's Paris. We leave for Kuala Lumpur in the morning for two nights before finally returning home about 11pm on Sunday night.
It's going to be a hard Monday.
See you in KL.
- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad
Location:Paris, France
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