I Louvre you!!!!!!

We woke up Monday morning with our plan being to head out to Versailles. I called Versailles just to make sure the Palace was open. Good thing I called. The lady I spoke to informed me that "the Palace is closed." I asked if it was open Tuesday, and she said "there is a strike and so the palace should be closed Tuesday as well." Finally, she informed me the Palace would be open on Wednesday. We knew we wanted to go to the Louvre while we were here as well, but it is closed on Tuesdays. So that meant we really only had one choice for Monday if we wanted to do the Louvre and Versailles -- head to the Louvre. So we did...


It was the worst day of weather we have had since we have been here (sprinkling rain, windy and cloudy)....

...so it was a good day to go to a museum anyway. We got a little bit of a later start because we were thrown off by the closure of Versailles, so we knew we were going to have to hustle to get the whole museum in before it closed at 5:30.

It is an incredibly gorgeous building (as you could see from earlier posts).


(inside the pyramid)

(inside the Louvre)
We decided to head right away towards what is probably the most famous piece of art in the world -- the Mona Lisa. As you can see, lots of other people thought this was a good idea too...

It is striking how small the piece really is.


We then set out to walk around the rest of the HUGE museum enjoying the rest of the art.




And every now and then, posing with it...




(Darcy liked his smile...)

We walked through Napoleon III's apartment as well. Darcy really liked the chandeliers...


He had a really nice view of the city as well...

...although I am sure this is quite a different view then he had.

We sat down for a quick lunch to recharge and prep for an afternoon of viewing more art.

Then we started exploring some more...



(Venus de Milo)




(Code of Hammurabi)


Before closing time we had walked through every wing on all four floors of the Louvre...


Darcy suggested we head back for a picnic in front of the Eiffel Tower and I thought that was a great idea. We hopped on the metro and went to our local boulangerie to buy lots of goodies. We then headed up the street to the market to get some cheese and water. The clerk there, realizing we were tourists, decided he would try to short change us 20 Euro and hope we didn't catch it. Darcy caught him though. He begrudgingly gave us the correct change without apology...nice guy...haha

We then headed out for our picnic.


I couldn't wait until we got there to have some bread...too hungry...


Darcy thinks this car is REALLY cute...

...and this building...

...and apparently this random man who keeps showing up in the pictures...


For our picnic, we didn't have a blanket, so we took some clean bath towels we have and used them instead...

Nice, huh? Our picnic was a pretty nice collection though...

And our view was spectacular...

We enjoyed our food, the view, and the people watching.




We then laid down to watch the Eiffel Tower light up.




Before it lit up like this (something we knew it was going to do) I asked a random French man what time the Eiffel Tower lit up and he said "It is at every time...eight, nine, ten." That was at eight and nothing happened. But we realized something special was supposed to happen at nine; we just didn't know what. Then, this happened...

Here are a few pictures too...


It was really beautiful. We then headed back towards the Metro. After a little bargaining for a toy under the tower ("How much?" "10 Euro," "I'll give you 1," "NO, 6 Euro," "Three," "No, 5," "3," "No, 4," "3 (walking away)," "Ok, ok, 3."), we hopped back on the metro and headed home. Another great day.

Today we are off to more museums. And hopefully some ice cream as we clearly failed to meet our quota yesterday...