The Traveller Has Returned - Part III

Sunday morning almost the entire group went to the Louvre. Part of the trip packet was a paid entrance. So our tour manager bought all of the tickets for us and let us loose inside the museum. The Louvre has a deep history that you can read on the official website, but here are some facts. The museum was first a 12th century fortress and palace, then over the centuries it grew larger and housed collections from people like Cardinal de Richelieu and Napoleon I.

Callie and I made our way to the Sully Wing. Here to greet us as we climb the stairs was Victory of Samothrace Landing or better known as Winged Victory or just plain Nike. For my fellow TWU students - the Nike that stands in the portico of the Old Main Building is a repical of this statue in the Louvre. Once we took a picture or two of Nike, Callie and I moved onto the left side of the Sully Wing. There we saw Venus de Milo. She was just as beautiful as Nike was. I noticed that both of the statues were larger than I originally thought.

From the Sully Wing, Callie and I then went in search of the famous Mona Lisa. It actually didn't take long cause all we had to do was follow the crowd of people. I didn't get too close because of the crowd, but I did get a very good long look at her. She is quite pretty and enigmatic as some claim her to be, and she really does not have eyebrows. Why is that? Who knows. Another thing about Mona was that the painting is actually quite small. It's only about 30 inches in height and 21 inches in length. You would think that she would be larger, but I think that is because of her popularity in the mass media and all the large posters people buy. I like the idea of Mona being a small painting. It adds to her uniqueness.

After swimming our way out of the crowd that surrounded Mona, Callie and I wandered through the other painting galleries. I actually got to see some paintings that I have studied while at TWU like Ingres' "The Bather, known as the Valpincon Bather" and Delacorix's "July 28. Liberty Guiding the People." I try to see more paintings in the upper level, however the wing was closed. So we decided to roam around the museum a little more and ended up in the gift shop where we bought postcards of our favorite works.

After taking a few pictures of the glass pyramids when leaving the Louvre, which have been made famous recently with the The Da Vinci Code phenomenon, we walked along the Seine making our way to Notre Dame. Along the way we bought some mini Art Nouveau posters. For any fans of the Art Nouveau artist Mucha - Paris is the place to buy such things!

At Notre Dame I took the pictures that I wanted and then we went inside the cathedral once more. We were only inside for few minutes when Mass began. I was surprised that they would allow tourist to walk around the outer part of the church while they hold a service in the middle. Feeling the need for some respect, I didn't take any pcitures once the Mass started.

Outside once more, we bought lunch at a little patisserie next to the church. Instead of having another panini, I opted for two hot dogs in a bagette that had cheese on it. It was yummy, though I wish that they had some ketchup to go with it. After we ate in the shadows of the cathedral we did a little shopping. I bought two postcards of the Paris Opera house (the one where Phantom of the Opera has its setting), and a new scarf. After that we took the Metro back to the hotel.

At 3:30 we all meet in the lobby of the hotel and took a coach to the Gare de Nord train station. The train ride back to London was nice. Though, when I was at the station I noticed that my throat was sore, so during the ride I was slightly incomfortable. When we stepped off the coach that brought us from the Waterloo station in London back to Gloucester Road I had an official sore throat.

In my room I unpacked my bag, changed my clothes and popped a few pills to try to lessen my oncoming cold. I then ran into Sarah D. in the computer lab and we decided that it was time to eat a big dinner. So we went to Pizza Hut. After that, I had a Deliciousness from Tesco. As Sarah S. would put it - tonight was the three week anniversery of discovering the wonderful chocolate dessert. After that, I went to bed. My body had enough fun for one day.