Mona Lisa
Walk: Louvre, Tuileries Garden, Champs Elysée, Arc d'Triomphe
Lunch: La Terrasse de Pomone; typical outdoor café in Tuileries Garden, good salads, charcuterie plate, hot dog for Konur
Metro: from Arc d'Tromphe to station near apartment and vegetable/fruit shop
Dinner: Leftover pasta, fresh veggies, and fruit for dessert in our apartment
Accommodation: Le Grand Casimir Apartment (Airbnb); host Raoni
We were all up early to eat eggs, cheese, juice, and muesli before walking to the Louvre, about a half mile away. We entered the museum at 9:00 (the earliest entering time and supposedly the least crowded) and made our way straight to the Mona Lisa. Meghan and I were pleasantly surprised at how large it is; for some reason, we both remembered it as very tiny and dark. As at the Eiffel Tower, the crowds were organized but dense. Everyone wore a mask in the galleries, and we moved to less crowded areas as soon as we could.
Twenty years ago, Meghan and I spent four days in Paris to celebrate her 21st birthday. One of our favorite parts of the Louvre, and an area we thought Konur would like, was a hall under the Sully wing, were workers were excavating the foundation for the old castle that stood at the location. On our previous visit, the exhibit was under construction and there was very little information about it. On today's visit, it was complete and well described in both French and English. It was fascinating to see how the Louvre looked during the medieval era, in the 12th to 16th centuries.
We wandered through a few more galleries, until we were beginning to get tired and hungry. Next came a walk through the Tuileries Garden to the Place de la Concorde, stopping for lunch at an outdoor restaurant in the garden. Konur got a French hot dog (a big sausage in a baguette). The rest of us got salads. We all had cold drinks.
Leaving the restaurant, we continued up the Champs Elysée to The Arc d'Triomphe. By this time, it was over 90 degrees Fahrenheit, and we were all beginning to wilt. We took the metro back to a stop near our apartment, bought fresh fruit and vegetables at a little market, and retreated to our cool kitchen to reheat pasta for dinner.
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| We were happy to have tickets purchased ahead of time so we could skip the long line for buying tickets. |
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| Konur might not have been as excited about seeing the Mona Lisa as we were about showing it to him. |
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| The opulence of some of the galleries is incredible. |
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| Again, one of our favorite parts of the Louvre is the Medieval Louvre exhibit, on the lower level of the Sully wing. |
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| A beautiful day in the Tuileries Garden, but already in the 90s before noon. |
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| Konur wants so badly to be old enough to watch Stranger Things on Netflix. The Champs Elysée has just about every store you can think of. |
