The Louvre For Free!

As most people know, the first Sunday of every month there is free admission to most museums in Paris.  If you look this up this online, people will tell you to avoid the Louvre (the world’s most visited museum) like the plague on this Sunday because it”s usually the busiest day of the month, but for whatever reason we lucked out and there was no line-up at all when we went at 2 in the afternoon today!

Since we were expecting the line-ups to be crazy, when we got off the metro we spent 20 minutes looking for a less-busy side entrance which we had read about on the internet.  It’s supposed to be between the Pont du Carrousel and Pont Royal in the southwing of the museum, but we couldn’t find it and decided to try the main pyramid entrance which most people use.  To our amazement there was only about 30 people in line and we were inside in 15 minutes!

Most people say there are only three things worth seeing at the Louvre – the Mona Lisa, the Winged Victory of Samothrace, and the Venus de Milo.  After our visit today, we have to agree! The rest of the museum is filled with paintings from the 14th-19th century, antiques and art from many different parts of the world, and sculptures.  As I mentioned before, we’re not really “art people” and the importance/significance of these pieces was lost on us – we just don’t know how to appreciate the older stuff!  At least we’re not the only people who feel that way…

Seeing the Mona Lisa in person was quite an interesting experience – it was much smaller than I expected (only 30 inches x 21 inches), and the never-ending hoards of people crowding around to get a glimpse of it was unbelievable! You can’t get close to the painting at all – there were five security officers making sure people stayed behind the bars around it and it’s behind a protective glass case – so on a busy day it’s virtually impossible to get a clear picture of Leonardo daVinci’s most famous work, but people keep trying!  After being jammed shoulder-to-shoulder with the crowd for a while, we gave up trying to get to the front and moved to the right to exit

Although we had read that you should plan your tour of the Louvre before going, we got lazy and didn’t study the museum map online before getting there.  As a result, we got totally lost while looking for the Venus de Milo, which is on the ground floor, below the Mona Lisa and Winged Victory of Samothrace (which are located pretty close together and are quite easy to find).  The museum staff weren’t too helpful and we ended up walking around in several circles, having a hard time even finding the stairs!  If you’re going to the Louvre, be forewarned – it’s as poorly labeled as Versailles!  The only good thing about getting lost was when we eventually found the Venus de Milo we came from behind it, which meant we avoided the crowd coming from the front of it and managed to get some really good clear pictures of it.  I don’t really get what all the fuss is about, but it’s a nice sculpture (without arms!?!).