Ah, to wake up in Paris, and eat breakfast in the café next door! So what if croissants/bread, orange juice, and tea/coffee/hot chocolate for three cost $40? When you stay with friends rather than at a hotel, you can afford not to worry too much about the meals. It was a lovely breakfast, and the orange juice was squeezed from real oranges seconds before being brought to the table. The orange juice was part of the package, or I wouldn't have ordered it, since I'm a Florida snob who believes that the only real citrus juice is not only "not from concentrate," but hasn't been pasteurized, and that's impossible to get at a restaurant—unless the juice truly is fresh-squeezed. So this was a delightful surprise.
So was being able to communicate in French! I haven't mentioned that yet, but it was one of the most enjoyable aspects of this trip. My French is of the three years in high school forty years ago variety, supplemented by some recent, desultory language tape practice. Nonetheless, the French people were very patient and never switched to English unless it was necessary, and I experienced the thrill of actually communicating in another language! Readers from other countries may find it hard to imagine that one can study a language without ever communicating, but language study in the U. S. tends to be much more theoretical than practical. It was very exciting to understand and to be understood in another language, even if only at the most basic level. I believe Americans would be much less resistant to foreign language study if they had the opportunity to experience this. Saying "Bonjour, comment allez-vous?" to a fellow student does not count.
The Louvre. We could have spent a week, or a month, or a year there, but we settled for all day today. It was an easy walk from the apartment, and we got a good start by not having to wait in the long line at the entrance. Because we spend so much time at the Louvre, instead of hopping from museum to museum, we didn't, in one sense, get our money's worth out of our Paris Museum Passes. It would have been less expensive to pay direct admission. But we highly recommend getting the passes anyway, because their true value lies in shunting you to the front of all those long lines. (Actually, it's usually a separate line altogether.) Too bad they don't work at the Eiffel Tower!
I. M. Pei's infamous Pyramid Entrance may not fit with the style of the Louvre, but it stands atop (and brings light to) a huge improvement in crowd-handling. The underground hub also makes it easy to navigate from one wing to another of the huge museum, and is a great place to meet up if you've been separated. I don't suppose most tourists think of the Pyramid as "just another work by the guy who designed Wilson Commons," but most tourists at the Louvre didn't attend the University of Rochester.
We split up, arranging to meet again at a café under the Pyramid in two hours to compare notes. Janet wanted to be free to explore at her own pace, and rented an audio guide. I went with Porter because I enjoy his commentary; we shared our mp3 player with Rick Steves' audio tour. Actually, we quickly abandoned Rick, as his commentary didn't fit well with our style, and we had gotten out of sync anyway, because one of the exhibits had been moved. Not to worry; there was plenty to see, read, and learn without help.
Speaking of help, this is as good a place as any to insert a plea to all parents of small children: Do yourself and your kids a really big favor, and make every effort to familiarize them with great works of art, particularly while they are young and have not learned that museums are supposed to be boring. (I could say the same about music, but right now we're at the Louvre.) I don't mean dragging them to art exhibits (not at first), nor making "art appreciation" a formal topic of study. But there are so many other ways to introduce them to famous art and artists, from showing Bits of Intelligence to babies (Jonathan loved them), to hanging art pictures all over the walls and talking about them together, to books and videos, such as the excellent ones by Mike Venezia. (I didn't know until today that he has videos! I'll have to investigate further.) Talk about the art works with your child; it helps if you know something about them yourself, but even if you don't, you can still make comments; this will help your child notice and remember. When you do visit a museum, try to get pictures of some of the works you will see, and let your child become familiar with them first. Do what you can, but do it! And the younger you begin, the better. It's never too late, but early can be a lot easier.
Why am I so emphatic about this? Because we found our visit to the Louvre to be so much more exciting and interesting for having watched Museum Masterpieces: The Louvre, a Teaching Company course. There's nothing like walking into a room and suddenly coming upon a painting that you "know," even if it's not one of the better-known works. I believe the line at the Mona Lisa would have been a lot less long if it weren't just about the only work many tourists are familiar with. How else to explain their ignoring the other famous da Vinci works just a few feet away?
Okay, back to our tour. Porter and I spent our time in the Denon wing, mostly with French and Italian paintings; on the way, we caught the Venus de Milo and the Winged Victory of Samothrace. We went at a much faster pace than we had at Basel's Kunstmuseum, but still were caught in the middle of a huge wing when it was time to head for our meeting place. Janet, it turns out, had spent the whole time on the second floor of the Sully wing. So we departed, planning to meet again in three hours.
I believe we more or less swapped wings, Janet heading for Denon and we for Sully, where we learned why she had spent so much time amongst the French paintings on the second floor. We saw much else, as well, but museum fatigue was definitely setting in. There is only so much the brain can handle all at once, not to mention the feet.
The Louvre is too much. It has too much. They can't take proper care of their immense store of treasures. At the Kunstmuseum, the artwork is protected by an invisible, electronic barrier that alerts a vigilant guard if you inadvertently cross it. At the Louvre, we saw many examples of people getting up very close, breathing on the delicate paintings, stroking the sculptures, touching frames and probably even the paintings themselves! The museum generously allows photography in almost all of the exhibits, but asks that flash not be used. This was in large measure ignored, with the paintings being subject to bright light after bright light.
I don't understand why so many people bother to come to the Louvre, only to view the art through a camera lens. I did understand the men who wanted their pictures taken next to the Venus de Milo, but why take a picture of a famous painting (without even yourself in it to show that you were there, in the same room as that famous painting), when you could buy a much better picture of the same thing on a postcard in the museum shop? Or even pull one off the Internet? It's true there were a few things I should have taken pictures of, because they aren't famous enough to be on a postcard, but for the most part the effort seems a complete waste of time.
So, we were exhausted, dehydrated, and hadn't eaten anything since breakfast. Probably not the best circumstances under which not to have a specific plan as to what to do next. We wandered through part of the Tuileries, which I found disappointing, largely because I hadn't done my homework and was expecting more in the way of flowers for something with jardin in its name. There we had a small bite to eat and the tensest moments of our entire trip, before and after. But we got through it, and decided it made sense to split up again. Porter, who was still gung-ho and energetic, walked to the Monnaie de Paris, a coin museum, while Janet and I went back to the apartment to rest. The time actually wasn't very restful, as it was spent trying to plan the rest of the evening, but at least we were off our feet.
Happily reunited, we decided we couldn’t possibly do all we wanted to, and would "settle" for some bread and cheese in the apartment and a return to the Louvre. This time we saw a little more of each other, as we both had missed parts of the first floor of the Denon wing, and also wanted to get to the Richelieu wing. In the latter, Porter spent the most time amongst the Dutch painters, and Janet was amazed by (among other things), Napoleon III's apartments. She'll have to tell you about it, though, as we didn't get there. You can't see everything in a day. You can't even walk by everything. But I think we did very well for the time we had.
Today was Good Friday, and though we didn't spend it as we usually do, we certainly saw enough paintings that did not let us forget the significance of the day.
