Day Four - A Feast For the Eyes and the Belly

"Cafes Abound In Paris..." -Galignani's Guide

Our diet in Paris consisted of four dominant foods...eggs, bread, cheese, and sugar. Those greens you see on that plate next to the omelette are probably the first and the only greens eaten all week. I don't think a day went by that we didn't eat a perfectly prepared egg, a baguette, and a crepe. Sometimes it was a perfectly prepared egg inside of a crepe. And we were sure to get our treats. 

On this, our first morning in Paris, we stopped at a crepe shop for breakfast. Here we were able to experience the quiet cobblestoned road dappled with cafes that you always see in the movies. 

As we nibbled on our crepe filled with banana and nutella, a cat slinked across the top of one of the old french buildings. It just added to our splendid morning. There's Angie enjoying her Croque Madame, lest you think we only ate gyros in France. Like I said, plenty of eggs, cheese, and bread.

We actually did less eating than we thought we would in Paris, because there was so dang much to see. This morning, we made it a priority to get inside of Notre Dame.

The inside of Notre Dame was different from the inside of the Dom Cathedral in Cologne. There were not quite as many stained glass windows, and not as much natural light. But the warm glowing chandeliers were a lovely touch.

Notre Dame was much more tourist packed. All of Paris was chuck full of tourists. I suppose I shouldn't have been surprised. It was a little frustrating at times not to be able to get a photo without thirty heads in it. I couldn't help but take a picture of this group of children on a field trip. Can you imagine? "Ok children, don't forget your permission slips tomorrow, for our field trip to the 850 year old Notre Dame cathedral." A far cry from our typical field trips to the Dinosaur Park or the Planetarium. People in those halls had spent thousands of dollars to finally get to Paris to see Notre Dame, and these cute little school boys were climbing on the columns as if it was any other boring museum. If those children only knew what kind of history they had at their finger tips.

I also thought this couple was cute, sitting back and enjoying the beauties of the cathedral.

We said farewell to the home of Hugo's infamous Hunchback and made our way to the Conciergerie. This building had been a bit of an afterthought. Neil's coworker had mentioned that this might be a place of interest.

Um yah, this building had only been the center of the French Revolution. Angie and I both being fascinated with the French Revolution, this was indeed a place of interest. The Conciergerie  was also known as the "antechamber to the guillotine" as it was the final stop for over 2,700 people who ended up at the guillotine during the Reign of Terror. 

The most famous guest being Marie Antoinette. We enjoyed touring the building and reading about the queen's final months in what seems like a harmless place over 200 years later. We also learned more about the revolution.

It was a little bit eerie to think of how many people had spent their final moments in this building before losing their lives, some in very torturous ways.

This was the ladies courtyard, where the female prisoners were able to go out and get a little fresh air.

We also stopped in the Sainte-Chapelle, a church that dates back to the 1200's. I was most intrigued by the detailed stained glass depicting scenes from throughout the entire Bible. From Genesis to the life of Christ, all represented in stained glass. Amazing!

We devoted the last half of the day to the Louvre, understanding we wouldn't even scratch the surface of such a collection in one evening. But we were going to give it the ol' college try.

Call me clueless, but I guess I didn't realize the Louvre was actually contained in a massive palace. I only ever remembered the pyramid. Shows you what I know.

The first thing that struck me was how absolutely enormous some of the paintings were. You see these paintings in books and have no idea that the originals take up entire palace walls. How the artists were able to pull off such works and maintain proper scale and perspective is beyond me. It seems like you would have to use a paintbrush 20 feet long to get back far enough to see what you're painting. I found myself walking down the center of the rooms. You had to step back to fully enjoy the art.

The next question was, are we going to go see the Mona Lisa? I mean we're in the stinking Louvre, heck let's go see the Mona Lisa. We weren't quite sure where to find her, until we passed a room overflowing with tourists, facing one wall, and pointing phones and iPads and all sorts of cameras at a lone painting. We took a shot in the dark that this might be our lady.

Indeed it was. So much for me having a quiet moment with one of the greatest paintings in existence. So much for me getting close to examine the brush strokes and the cracks in the paint. It was short little me standing behind a mob of about 50 people. I kept asking myself, "Do half of these people even care about art, or did tripadvisor just tell them this was a must-see?" I handed Neil my camera and told him to get a good shot.

He delivered. There she is my friends...the original Mona Lisa by Leonardo Da Vinci. It really was beautiful. The thing that shocked me was how vibrant the colors were after so many centuries.

This too is an original Leonardo Da Vinci, but there was no frantic mob fighting for a picture of her. It was just as I suspected. Those people didn't care about art.

I liked this painting. Neil came up to it and said, "Oh, I love the face made out of vegetables." Then he moved on. I looked at him like he was crazy. "What are you talking about?! This is a beautiful still life." I thought to myself. It wasn't until I got home and looked at the photos that I noticed, oh, it's a face made out of vegetables. What does that say about how mine and Neil's brains work?

We had seen some magnificent paintings, but now it was time for some sculpture.

I love that there are still artists that perch themselves in a corner of the Louvre and start recreating the works of the masters. 

I can remember sitting in my sophomore world history class and watching a video about the statue of David by Michelangelo. I can remember being in awe of this piece of art, not just because it was a naked man, but because the stone looked like flesh. How did Michelangelo do this? I had that experience again this evening as I came across another original Michelangelo.

"The Dying Slave" stood at the end of this long corridor of sculptures. And I fell in love with it. Apparently tripadvisor had not done its job on this one, and so I was able to have a quiet moment with "the dying slave".

Neil asked Angie and I why we thought Michelangelo's sculptures got so much hoopla when there were countless beautiful sculptures throughout the museum. We contemplated and discussed this matter in the Louvre. How often do you get to discuss such a question at the feet of "The Dying Slave"? Angie pointed out that Michelangelo's work got all the hype partly because it's Michelangelo. He's one of the greats, everyone knows it. But then our conversation went something like this, "The reason he's one of the greats is because his work really does stand out. It is exceptional. Look at one of those statues over there. That is a lovely marble rendition of a woman. But look at Michelangelo's slave. You almost forget it's stone. It seems like you could go up to him and touch him, and he would be soft flesh not hard rock." And that was the conclusion we drew while sitting in a palace hall in the Louvre among gorgeous sculptures.

I came to one more conclusion as I walked the Louvre where nudity seemed to abound. I was born in the wrong era. I should have been born during the Rococo era, where soft fleshy women were considered works of art. I felt at home amongst the nudes of the Louvre. These 21st century women with their thin firm bodies. They're the freaks of nature, not me.

Anyway, my last visit was to a corner of the museum that housed some Peter Paul Rubens, an artist I fell in love with during that college art/history class nearly two decades ago. The same class that left me determined to visit Europe one day and see these masterpieces in person, not just on the glossy pages of a tattered textbook. It was just as I suspected. The vibrancy of the originals is beyond anything a photograph could duplicate. You felt like you could look into the eyes of the subjects in the paintings and that they could speak to you. And I kind of wished that they would.

I had been amongst the works of the masters, and it had been a most enlightening experience.

"A masterpiece withstands time. Its importance grows on those who feel attracted by its unending life. It creates enthusiasm which spreads from soul to soul..." -Hilla Rebay