4.28.08 (Monday) _ Paris

Monday, April 28^th

Today is our one-year wedding anniversary! It is hard to believe that we have been married for one year now, because time is going so quickly. We feel very lucky to be able to have the opportunity to spend this special occasion together in Paris.

Today the weather is supposed to be cooler with rain likely. Knowing this information ahead of time, we planned to visit the Louvre first thing this morning. We took the metro from our hotel to the Louvre stop. There are multiple ways to get into the museum, especially if you take the metro. At first we followed the signs for the Louvre museum and found a gift shop where you could purchase tickets for the museum. The line was relatively short, which ended up being a good thing because in order to purchase tickets you had to pay in cash. Being short on cash, we opted to go through the pyramid entrance so we could say that we did. On our walk to the exit to get to the main entrance through the pyramid (outside) we walked under the pyramid where we would eventually purchase the tickets. Outside, the line into the Louvre was quite short. Once we got to the front of the line, we had to put our book-bags on an airport security conveyor belt that would run it through an x-ray machine. Then, it was just an escalator ride down and we were back to where we were before – under the pyramid! The museum opens at 9:30am and we were buying tickets around 9:40am. This is probably why we felt like the lines were not too long.

We entered through the Denon area. Since we were there close to opening time, we decided to make the Mona Lisa our first stop. On our fast walk toward the Mona Lisa we passed the Winged Victory of Samothrace. This sculpture was very detailed and impressive in appearance. We would pass the sculpture again on our way to the next level, so we headed quickly into the area of the 13 – 15^th century Italian Paintings (there were directional signs to the Mona Lisa). We were able to be in the front row to view the Mona Lisa. The painting of her makes her look very realistic. We did feel like she was staring back at her. Now, we understand how people can sit there for hours looking at the painting. On the bus ride, we were told that Napoleon had the painting in his bedroom until his wife had him remove the painting because it made her jealous! When we heard this we thought that was really silly, but now surprisingly we can see why the wife was jealous. The painting is smaller in appearance than we had expected, but very stunning.

The Mona Lisa faces a back wall where the Wedding Feast at Cana hangs. This painting is very large. It is amazing that such beautiful work could be created on such a large scale.

After seeing several more paintings on the first floor, we wanted to head up to the 2^nd floor to see (just to name a few):

The Turkish Bath

The Card Sharper

Self-Portrait

The Lacemaker

Then, we headed down to the ground floor to see (just to name a few):

Psyche and Cupid sculpture

Borghese Gladiator sculpture

Aphrodite, known as Venus de Milo

Winged Bull, palace of Sargon II

On the lower ground floor we saw (Just to name a few):

Horses of Marly

Medieval Moat

St. Mary Magdalene

Cycladic Idol

We saw many other paintings, sculptures and various other artistic pieces of work during our 4 hour stay at the Louvre. The building is very massive that one could easily spend a full day here, especially if you have an art background. Some of the rooms with paintings in them had people set up with easels and chairs painting replicas of the paintings on the wall. We walked through almost every corridor of the Louvre. It is amazing how large the building is!

Our feet slightly sore from walking, we decided to sit outside the pyramid entrance to the Louvre in front of a fountain. Since it was almost 1:30 we needed a snack before we walked further to find a restaurant.

Once our feet were up for more walking, we headed to the left bank (south of the Seine River) in search of a café/restaurant to eat lunch at. After walking for a bit, we came across a pizza restaurant. There was an older gentleman eating a pizza outside and the pizza looked delicious so we walked in. We were seated upstairs, probably because we look like tourists. We ordered a pepperoni and sweet pepper pizza. The pizza was really good! They served an oil sauce with the pizza that we could drip over the pizza as we wanted. The oil must have contained hot peppers of some sort because it was kind of spicy. The pizza had a thin crust, minimal sauce and lots of cheese. We really enjoyed the pizza.

Since it was only 2:30pm we walked to the Jardin de Luxembourg. When we walked into the garden, we saw quite a few tables that had chess squares painted on the tops. A lot of people had brought with them their chess pieces and were playing with friends. We sat down at the last open table and set our tiny magnetic chess pieces up on the board to play a game of chess. After our game, we moved on toward the center of the garden to sit on the reclined chairs to enjoy the little bit of sunshine that was starting to peak through the rain clouds.

Relaxed, we decided to keep moving because the clouds were starting to look more and more like rain. We walked past the Pantheon and were impressed with how large and massive the building was.

Our next stop was to the Arenes de Lutece. This area was discovered in 1869 and is the remains of a Roman arena. We were a little disappointed with this as it doesn’t look like it is an old arena, rather it looks like a park for playing games. Also, it was soured by a small group of little boys with a paintball gun shooting pellets at people – yes, he even tried shooting one at us.

We walked from the arena towards Notre-Dame. When we got to the Seine River, we decided to sit down by the river front. It was very nice to sit down there – until it started to rain! So, we pulled up the hoods on our rain jacket and gathered up our backpacks to go sit inside Notre-Dame for a bit.

We caught the RER train to the airport around 5pm and by 6pm we were at the check in section of the Charles de Gaulle airport. We were disappointed with the airport because once we were passed the security check-in part, there was only a small deli type café open to purchase food, drinks and snacks at.

Our flight was delayed by about a half hour, due to the late arrival of the incoming plane. But, we had an uneventful flight, thankfully! For dinner, they served grilled zucchini and a vegetarian cheese pie.

We took the train from the Arlanda airport in Stockholm to the Uppsala train station.

Exhausted, we dropped our stuff and fell right to sleep.