Paris Day 3 – Speechless! Overcome with emotion. We entered the Louvre from the Metro so the grandeur that exists outside the palais where the pyramid is above-ground escaped us until we exited there. Instead, as I stood in the lobby looking at the spiral staircase arcing up toward the exit level through the pyramid, I was suddenly, quite unexpectedly overcome with emotions similar to those I felt standing at a hilltop in Tuscany looking down upon the valley of olive groves. It was a fullness, a happiness that brought tears to my eyes. To know me is to know how much I truly love and appreciate art and architecture. I guess you could say I minored in it in college. Sitting in a darkened room viewing slide after slide of pieces from the Byzantium through the neo-classics and modernism I would be mesmerized by my professor’s Boston accented discussions of the works displayed on screen. We learned and had to memorize each piece’s history, about its artist, if known, and about what types of artistic medium was used in its design and I loved every minute of it. Today, we took a group tour of the Louvre and as Madame took us around the museum and explained each piece’s history it was those college lectures I recalled. Venus de Milo, Mona Lisa, so many other sculptures and paintings I learned about to see up close (except for the lady with the smile who was behind glass and roped off) was one of the highlights of my life. Learned from our guide that the M ona Lisa was pregnant when she posed for the DaVinci and that’s why her hands are folded over her stomach. La Jaconde sits under glass away from the crowds that crowd in front on her jostling to pose with her and take selfies with her as a backdrop. Quite a spectacle. After our tour ended, we walked to the Musee de l’Opera, a building so beautiful in its exteriors it sheds a different portrait as you walk around it and serves as a kind of gathering place much like the Spanish steps do in Rome. We hopped back on the Metro to the Champs de Elysee and strolled up the boulevard before finding a place to have dinner outside. When night fell so did the temperature and we walked back towards the l’Arc de Triomphe, contemplated going to the top to look out over the city of light in all its night glory. Unfortunately, the facial nerve starting acting up in the cold and we walked back to our hotel near the Eiffel Tower which shimmered against the night sky. To sum up the day…beauty…miraculous wonders that are the work of human hands born from the heart of passion to capture life in all its glory. Tomorrow, Le Marais and wherever else the day takes us. One day we will venture back to Musee d’Orsay to see the works of the great French masters.
Posted on: Sat, 23 Aug 2014 23:36:58 +0000
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