Paris part Deux

So I was all set to talk about museums today. Hubby and I have never been to so many in one trip. We averaged over 2/day. I had so much to tell you and share. And then I took a look at our pictures. We have like, maybe, maybe, 10. From all those museums! How is that possible? I blame hubby. I mean myself, letting hubby be in charge of the camera for an extended portion of the trip. Note to self: be in charge of camera when planning on blogging about what is being shot.

OK, enough complaining. I'll do my best, and maybe supplement when needed.

First off, The Louvre.


Looking at pictures of The Louvre before we went, I never understood what was going on with the pyramid thing. But it's really cool. Where you buy tickets is in the basement, so the pyramid is basically a huge skylight.



So, the museum is huge. People tell you that before you go, but you have no idea. We actually went twice, and still saw only a miniscule portion of the artifacts. We basically just ran around and saw the major stuff.


Mona Lisa

Madonna of the Rocks

Winged Victory which was my favorite.

Egyptian Sphinx

Venus de Milo

The Coronation of Napoleon which happens to be the biggest canvas in the museum. I know I'm going out on a limb here, but do you think that Napoleon had a Napoleon complex?

Another question: Did you know that the Louvre was a castle, then palace where the kings lived in Paris before it was a museum?


Wow! Maybe I had more pictures than I thought. Here's where the sparseness begins...
The Rodin Museum

This was his actually house, though I'm not clear on when or with whom he lived in it. Hubby kept chanting, "Don't ban Rodin!" If you went to BYU during '97-'98, then you know what that means.

The Thinker


The Orsay Museum

It was a train station built for the 1900 World Fair converted into a museum.


You can look through the back face of this clock. It's very cool.

And we saw art and stuff. (Portrait of the Painter's Mother by Whistler)

Army Museum
No pics. It was WWI and WWII from the French perspective. Very interesting. Did you know that Charles de Gualle won the war for the Allies? And did the British fight in WWII? Cause you wouldn't know it after going through that museum!

The Orangerie Museum
This was my favorite. I'd like to show you some pictures of their downstairs, but I was too distracted at the time of viewing to take pics. Hubby had just informed me that he had cancelled my cancellation of my oldest's piano lesson.

Upstairs are two large oval rooms where there are huge curved canvases of Monet's Water Lillies. They were commissioned by the museum. And the rooms were designed specifically for the paintings.

Monet worked on them for 12 years. They are considered the first art installation and a step toward modernism. They're so beautiful. This was my favorite museum, just for this. Monet died before the installation was finished. How sad.

I think that's it, except for the museum in Versailles, which I'll post all about tomorrow. If any of you are thinking about going to Paris, make sure you get the Paris Museum Pass. I think the only thing we paid for was the Eiffel Tower. All of the museums and most of the sites, including Versailles are covered by the pass. It's a really great deal.