Oh, I am on a roll here…writing my Paris blog posts left and right. I am keeping it simple, you see? I wish I could give you more details and more history about all the beautiful streets and sights we see, but then it becomes more like a tour. Paris is full of history, of course, but Paris is more about the French atmosphere. Although sometimes it’s hard to find a true Parisian feel among all the tourists and languages, just grab a croissant, sit down by the river and breath in the French air-haha.
On Saturday morning, Robert and Alex had to go down to St. Germaine square to help my mom sent a couple of suitcases to Ukraine by bus. Then they met the rest of us at the Louvre which was the main event of the day.
Oh, the Louvre…so grand, so vast, so fancy, and quite intimidating!
Our main agenda was to not have a horrible experience with kids. I know they would be bored after an hour, especially Mark. And I knew that we wanted to see the main highlights of the museum. Therefore, I followed what Rick Steve’s book said to figure out what route to take to maximize our time there. We mostly succeeded.
Ancient Greece was interesting.
And Roman detour was fun for the kids.
Katya had the camera, so she kept asking the boys to pick their favorite statues.
Um…Alex liked heads with flat noses.
And then he wanted to make his face look weird with his eye being all freaky. This is his attempt to make his own bust.
Mark looks so sad here (he is not!). That’s what he wanted his head statue to look like.
Robert said it’s only fait if he takes a picture with a very hairy dude.
This was my mom’s third visit to the Louvre, but the first time in this area of the museum.
Oh, no, more pictures of Alex with Roman guys.
Whatever it takes to entertain these two.
The boys found the Fighting Warrior, of course.
My mom is deep in thought.
And Mark is happy that he is half way done with his visit.
We all were excited to see Venus de Milo. Although I am not very knowledgeable in art, I do find Venus de Milo to be one of the most beautiful and mysterious sculptures of the museum. As the guide book explained to me, her posture is balanced and firm, and at the same time shaped as an “S” if you look at her from the back. And that is hard to create. It’s mysterious because we still are only guessing what she might have been doing with her arms. Was she holding onto something? someone? Did she have her arm extended or raised? We might never find out.
Katya and Venus.
In the meantime, the boys were entertaining themselves with “Rock Paper Scissors”.
One of the greatest statues of the museum is Winged Victory of Samothrace, or Nike of Samothrace, a marble statue from 2nd century BC of the Greek goddess Nike. It is believed to have been created to commemorate a naval victory of Macedonia over Egypt.
You don’t have to be an art lover to appreciate the work that went into decorating all the golden plated ceilings.
We did not go around looking at many pictures as I knew the kids would get bored quickly not being able to read French. By the way, yeah, that was a bit of a disappointment that all explanations under statues or pictures was only in French. You could pick up a large laminated card to read explanations in English in each hall, but it was still not very convenient.
Of course, we cannot forget about Mona Lisa. She is beautiful and mysterious just as we imagined.
Mark’s facial expressions says it all
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I am not sure if it’s the real thing hanging behind me.
Finally, Robert and Alex wanted to go see the Colossal Ramses. They took babushka along and went to see these …feet.
And cool Egyptian things…
Alex and his sphinx.
After that we were finished. I just have to admit to myself that I am not all into art museums unless I have specific things to see. And that is all right. I do go to famous ones because it’s an important cultural experience for me, but if I had a choice between going to a museum and going inside a palace, I’d pick a palace.
Another mission accomplished-visiting the Louvre with kids.
To be continued…
Lyana.
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