July 31, 2006
Monday was devoted to the Louvre, which could never be covered in one day, except by Superman… maybe.
We didn't need to wait very long to get in, and once we were in we made a beeline straight for the Mona Lisa, which had already attracted a substantial crowd around it. Protected by bullet-proof glass, the portrait was tiny compared to the huge "Wedding at Cana" that hung at the opposite end of the room. In fact, the actual Mona Lisa is smaller than most posters bearing her enigmatic smile. No albino monks were spotted nearby.
After viewing the masterpiece, we trudged through the Italian wing, saw the Venus di Milo, several wings of French paintings, German, Dutch and Flemish sections of art, an Islamic art and artifact gallery and Napoleon III's extravagant apartments. This took about six hours and we hadn't even covered a third of the museum. Soon we were just walking by masterpieces, glancing at each one until one just caught our attention, and then we continued.
After a quick lunch in one of the Louvre's cafe we actually ran into Georgia, the Taiwanese girl we had talked to the previous day at the Basilica du Sacre Coure, in front of some French statues and exchanged e-mails and amazement that we would find each other is such a humongous building (the perimeter of the Louvre is about three miles, just to give you a sense of its size).
At the end, we were utterly exhausted and retired at an early hour back at the hostel, opting to skip the festive atmosphere downstairs.