The Louvre

Wednesday was suppose to be really hot in Paris and when its really hot in Paris it is REALLY HOT. So to escape the heat we got up early ( at least for the boys it was early ) and headed on down to the Louvre. It is air conditioned and even with a million tourists it is still a lot better than wandering through the streets of Paris boiling.

The Louvre is an exploration in itself. The entrance is now Pei's world renowned Pyramid in the centre of Cour Napoleon. The fact that this hyper-contemporary, airy structure is the gateway to what used to be nearly a millennium ago a massive stronghold for royalty exemplifies the eternal  continuity of Paris throughout ceaseless change.

The original Louvre was the stronghold built by Philippe-Auguste in 1190. The name 'Louvre' is believed to have derived from Lupera because packs of wolves lurked near there centuries ago.

When the kings of France came to live here they each left their stamp on the palace. Charles V embellished it in Gothic construction which Francois I razed to the ground and transformed it into a renaissance palace. Henri II and III added two lateral wings and of course Catherine de Medici found it small and lacking in comfort so commissioned the great architect of the time, Philibert Delorme, to build her a new larger palace perpendicularly to the Seine. It was named the Palais des Tuileries. Henri IV joined it to the Louvre by way of a 470 metre long Galerie du Bord de L'eau along the river. It expanded further with the building of the Galerie d'Apollon and its spectacular grand colonnade. Louis IV abandoned it for Versailles so work came to halt before Napoleon settled their and built yet another new wing. It was Napoleon III who at last completed this gigantic monument by extending his uncles northern wing to the east and joining the Louvre and the Palais des Tuileries. But barely was this completed than Napoleon III was ousted. Soon Paris would be ignited by the bloody fury of the Commune and only a year after completion it was aflame and three centuries of construction vanished into thin air. It is hard to believe what this structure looked like back then since what remains is till one of the largest structures I've ever seem and this is less than half of the original structure.

This is yet another place that is near impossible to do justice with photography and when it comes to art I don't understand 99.9 percent of what I'm looking at so have no idea what to even take picture of. Like the other tens of thousands in the line to get in we made our way to visit Mona ... Mona Lisa if you want be formal. She is magnificent although it is hard to see anything given the crowds.

Life is good ... enjoy.

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I took pictures of her from both side of the room. Note that in each she is looking straight into my camera. I guess while I walked to the other side she got up from her chair and changed positions so that I could get a good picture? How polite of her.