Day 14 in Paris

This is the Mona Lisa

I remember the first time I saw the Mona Lisa I was surprised at how small it was. This is certainly not a glass half empty comment. The painting is absolutely impressive when viewed up close but when you enter the Denon Wing, first floor, room six in the Louvre and you see La Joconde (which is what the French call her) way over there, on the far side of the room through a sea of people wielding their cameras and iphones and video recorders you just may be surprised by the actual dimensions.

I headed down to the Louvre this morning but forgot that there is free admission on Sunday which meant that by the time I arrived there were literally thousands of people lined up in the sunshine. My Mom was back at the hotel nursing her brand new cold and I really didn’t have any other plans so I joined the line and asked the guard how long he figured it would be to get in. He told he thought it would be a an hour and a half to two hours. We ended up striking up a bit of a conversation and after a few minutes he leaned in close and whispered, “You know, the entrance at the Porte des Lions does not have any line-up at all…”

I remembered that years ago Glen and I had used this “secret” entrance to gain admission without any wait time and best of all I still remembered exactly where it was. I thanked my new friend and made my way over to the unmarked side entrance and just as he predicted there was not a single person waiting.

I spent the next couple of hours wandering around checking out the Italian, Spanish and French paintings, the Greek and Roman Antiquities, the Islamic art and the sculptures.  Truthfully though, I spent as much time looking at all of the people as the art collection. I saw babies crying, kids playing, families with crabby parents who were annoyed that their kids weren’t taking the art “seriously” enough, couples making out, old people holding hands. An art gallery of humanity.