We woke to a light rain but it didn’t last long. Bobbie and Gary are heading out to a walking tour and emJay and I headed to the Louvre . . . .

surprisingly not  too many people . . .

. . . as you can see here, there were only about 80 people in line  . . .easy peasy!!!!

. . .the pyramid sits above the main entrance, which when you get underground, is HUGE!!!!

. . . we rented the audio tour which was VERY informative. The museum is HUGE and you need a map to get around. Three main buildings have  multiple levels. Right away we saw signs for one of the ‘must see’ items  so we headed over to it . . .

. .  . along the way was an artist painting a reproduction . . . .

. . . Mona Lisa sort of has her own salon . . .

. . . and the crowds was not too bad . . .

. . . what better way to improve the view than by including yourself. Selfies, or people posing with goofy expressions, are being taken EVERYWHERE in the museum!!!!

. . . opposite Mona is the largest painting in the Louvre, that of ‘The Wedding at Canna’ . . .

. . . depicting Mary telling Jesus the participants have no more wine . . .

. . . in the lower corner is a servant pouring wine from a stone water cask into a wine serving vessel.

In the same salon was the second biggest painting in the museum, ‘The Crowning of Napoleon’.  He commissioned the work himself. It took the artist three years to complete the painting. At first Napoleon had him paint it with himself lifting the crown to his own head but later it was changed to him crowning his wife Josephine . . .

. . . in the lower left corner of the painting were Napoleon’s two brothers who became mayors of major cities’ during his rein . . .

. . . also included was Napoleon’s mother who had refused to come to the original ceremony in protest because Josephine was being crowned but had not produced a son for Napoleon. However, that did not prevent him from including her in the painting!!!!! . . .

. . . and interestingly, right behind Napoleon is a likeness of Julius Caesar!!!!

There is REALLY a lot going on in these huge paintings that include close to a hundred painted characters in each. The audio guide does an excellent job explaining  all  the action on the canvas.

HUGE ornate halls connect the buildings and the salons . . . walking through them. . .

. . .  soon we came to the Egyptian displays . . .

. . . huge carvings  . . .

. . . with lots of burial pieces . . .

. . . including the sarcophagus of Rammes III

. . . did I see an eye blink??????

. . . the displays include sarcophagus that weighed tons . . . to pieces like this that were only 18 inches long.

off to the side was a Medieval area . . . . no time today to tour it, maybe next time!!!!

. . . one last sphinx before we exited this display area. This one weighed tons. It was originally carved for an unknown pharaoh. As one pharaoh or king came and went the next would have his name added under the beard. When the area was filled, the names would be chiseled off and the list would start again!!!!!

Soon we were into the Greek area . . . .

. . . where the Venus de Milo was creating quite a crowd. Discovered on the island of Milo, south of Greece, in1820 by a farmer plowing his field, historians still have not figured out who she was, the artist, or what happed to  her arms. . . . the do know that she was carved by a Greek and her name should actually be Aphrodite, which is Greek, rather than Venus which is the Roman goddess of love!!!!

. . . her left arm was actually carved from a separate piece of marble and of course is still missing . . . maybe that farmer who found her needs to keep plowing!!!!!

On the way out we passed Diana, the huntress, Just one of thousand’s of pieces in the museum. The size of the museum is overwhelming and we hope to return on our next trip to Paris . . .

. . . . as we exited the Louvre there was the  Eiffel Tower. This is probably as close as we will get to it on this trip . . . .

. . . we had a little lunchy at a sidewalk café and decided to walk back to our hotel. It took several hours and was a BEAUTIFUL Saturday afternoon. We stopped and poked out heads into interesting shops along the way . . .

At the famous Printemp department store, emJay decided to buy a new purse. For those buying new purses today they had a little craft area set up to make a  ‘bob’ to hang  from your purse . . . at first she was reluctant, but at the urging of her clerk she soon joined the fun . . .

Voilà  . . . gold lame to go with her new black purse.  . . .

I too had ‘man purse’ envy and as I walked around the streets of Paris I envisioned myself hurrying along the avenues with a bag hung over my shoulder on the way to an important luncheon . . .

. . . identities have been masked to protect the innocent!!!!

. . . after a three hour walk back to the hotel we reunited with Bobbie and Gary and went out for our last group dinner in Paris, A yummy meal with two bottles of red wine had us returning to the hotel at 10:30pm, tired and  ready for a good nights sleep. zzzzzzzzzzzz . . . .