Paris 3

After watching some more thrilling World Cup action late into the night, Matt, Paul and I woke up pretty late this morning after getting 11 really necessary hours of sleep. We rolled out of bed, made ourselves presentable, and headed off to the Louvre. We took the metro to the Champs-Elysees stop and then walked down the banks of the Seine and the Champs-Elysee until we got to the massive line for the Louvre. It went rather quickly however and we were inside in no time.

In keeping with our theme of not paying for culture while in Paris, we chose to go to the Louvre today because it is completely free for everyone on the first Sunday of each month. Once we got in, we quickly headed to gallery 6 in the Italian Renaissance section to see the Mona Lisa. She was, as expected, gorgeous, but there was a truly massive crowd gathered around her. After going through so many art museums on this trip, I can now understand why the Mona Lisa was and is still so popular. There are literally hundreds of thousands of good to great paintings about Christianity, or Jesus' crucifixion, or the head of St. John the Baptist, or the Virgin Mary, or pictures of castles, or deer in the woods, or even the Venetian canals (though I love all of those and saw another Canaletto today). However, when Da Vinci put all of that emotion and more into a rather simple painting off just one ordinary women in an ordinary background, that was different. There was something really novel and moving about his choice to even paint the Mona Lisa and to put all of his creative energies and talents into that one visage and hinting, slightly visible smile. What is Mona so pleased about? Or is she resigned about something? There is nothing else in that painting which clutters it or distracts you from Mona and her expression. Rather, we are left to simply wonder what she is thinking in this very simple scene.

As mentioned, I also saw another of Canaletto's beautiful paintings of Venice and also the famed Venus De Milo statue.

 After the Louvre, Matt, Paul and I met up with the rest of the Paris remnants of the Team London and we headed of to the Marais district of Paris. It is famous for being a really beautiful, quaint shopping district that has always been especially accepting of Jews and homosexuals. Hence, there are very large Jewish and Gay communities in Marais.

 
Finally, we took the metro back to our hostel in Montmartre where I proceeded to lay around trying to rid myself of the Parisian heat. It was so great in the morning but just kept getting hotter and hotter as the day went on.

Check back soon!

-Simon