Today we walked our buns off! We started at the Louvre. We bought tickets at a kiosk upon entry and then headed toward the main entrance of the museum. We ran into the long lines of people before we got anywhere close to the main entrance, however. This was perplexing because we arrived approximately 15-20 minutes after its scheduled opening and the line wasn't moving at all. We soon discovered, after going to the front of the line as instructed by a museum employee, that the scheduled opening of the museum was delayed for undisclosed reasons. The doors finally opened at around 10:00 a.m. and despite the stink eyes from those who had been waiting in line for over an hour, we pushed our way through the first wave of people in the door. At that point, the race was on. It felt surreal and almost like a movie. Everyone started moving toward the Mona Lisa as quickly as possible. We arrived at this famous painting by Leonardo DaVinci with the coy smile of an oh-so-average looking, unidentified woman in the first wave of people. That means we were able to walk right up to the ropes (positioned at least 15 feet from the painting) and take photos before the real crowds descended upon the room. In the words of a very wise man, "What the [heck] is the big deal?" We were not quite sure what the draw to this painting is, but got it out of the way as soon as possible.
Once we checked the Mona Lisa off our list, we wandered through the Greek and Egyptian antiquities exhibits, as well as the medieval area of the Louvre before we allowed our collective A.D.D. to take over, and decided we had seen enough. From there, we headed to the Arc de Triomphe, which is much larger than what we thought it would be. As it turns out, the Arc is 165 feet tall. Construction began in 1809, as commissioned by Napoleon Bonaparte to honor his soldiers, who despite being vastly outnumbered by the Austrians, scored a remarkable victory at the battle of Austerlitz. Unfortunately, Napoleon died prior to the Arc's completion, but it was finished in time for his 1840 funeral procession to pass underneath, carrying his remains (19 years after he had died) from his point of exile in St. Helena to Paris.
In honor of this mighty little man, we headed to his tomb after leaving the Arc. Napoleon's tomb has been placed in a church that has been dedicated to him and his short life (1769-1821). When you enter the gold-domed church, you come to a railing around a huge round opening in the floor. Above the opening in the floor is the elaborately painted underside of the dome. The red tomb sits 15 feet above the floor below. If you were to open the lid, you would find an oak coffin inside, holding another ebony coffin, housing two lead ones, then mahogany, then tinplate...until finally you'd find Napoleon himself. When his body was exhumed from the orginal grave on St. Helena in 1840, they found that it was still perfectly preserved, even though 19 years had passed since his death. He had been exhiled to St. Helena after a failed attempt at an invasion on Russia. Biggest lesson here? Don't invade Russia...(at the beginning of his demise, Napoleon had invaded Russia with 600.000 men and returned with only 60.000 frost bitten survivors).
The galleries surrounding the tomb contain examples of armor, guns, cannons. and other various forms of weaponry. Riley was fascinated by it all while Ange and I just sat and waited for him to get through it. I had to laugh when I read Rick Steve's estimate on how long it would take to get through this museum: "Women - two hours, men - three hours, Republican men - all day." It took us a little over an hour. I guess Rick Steve didn't factor in the A.D.D. of a 12 year-0ld boy. By this time, it was approximately 5 p.m. and we were beat. We headed back to the room with the plan to go back out around 8 p.m. to see the Tour de Eiffel. Unfortunately, after our siesta, we all decided that our feet hurt, so we just headed out for dinner in the neighborhood close to our hotel.
The restaurant we found was called La Trattoria and it was (apparently) owned and operated by an Italian man from Napoli. He was wonderful and so was the food. Ange and I shared a bottle of wine and were given a "shot" of Limoncella (sp?) after our meal. We were fairly sedated by the time we arrived back at the room. Now we rest and prepare for another big day tomorrow. Our first stop will be Notre Dame. Bon Nuit!
P.S. I can't seem to get the pictures to upload from here in the hotel room because the signal appears to be too weak. I'll try to check it out tomorrow.
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