August 30, 2009
We arrive at Versailles at 10:00. Our plan was to park our car in the lot at the hotel, then check in later, but a room will be ready for us in about half an hour, so we have coffee and tea in the restaurant while we wait for our room. The hotel, Cheval Rouge, was built in 1676 and served as Louis XIV's livery stable.
We'll not see the famous castle today, though. We've chosen to stay in Versailles so we won't have to drive in Paris traffic, but we're just 30 minutes from central Paris via the commuter train. The 2-day pass we buy covers both the commuter train and the Metro system.
There is a man from New Jersey on the train from Versailles to Paris. He's already been to the chateau and is headed back to Paris to meet two friends for lunch.
The Metro and RER system make it easy to get around and it's easy to learn. And by buying a pass instead of purchasing a ticket for every trip, which saves time and money, if you make a mistake you just get off and get another train, but we've not gotten on the wrong train-yet.
We're across the Seine from the Louvre. We can walk across either of two bridges but we choose the Pont Neuf. At the Louvre the line under the pyramid moves quickly.
Once we have our tickets I approach a guide. We have a map and I ask her if a part of a certain wing is closed. It's not. Then I say, "I'm about to ask you the question that you're asked a million times a day...." And she finishes "...Where is the Mona Lisa?" We both laugh.
The act of seeing the Mona Lisa is not such a big deal. There are lots of people there, all taking photos, many of them of themselves and their partner in front of the Mona Lisa, proof that you really were here. You can't get close to da Vinci's masterpiece, and it's behind bullet proof glass. On August 2, a woman with psychological problems, angry because the French government had not granted her permission to emigrate, threw a coffee cup at the painting, but it was undamaged thanks to the bullet proof glass.
But it would be perversely silly not to see the world's most famous painting once you're in the Louvre.
The other two favorites are the Venus de Milo and the Winged Victory of Samothrace. Both live up to their fame (as does Mona) - wonderful sculpture.
Winged Victory gets a lot of my attention-fluid marble, proud and inspiring. It's located at the top of several flights of steps and seeing it from the bottom of the last flight of steps gives a hint of what she must have looked like in the original (sitting on the prow of a ship on a hilltop in Thrace).
No single-day visit to the Louvre will do it justice. Another reason, we tell each other, that we'll have to come back.
That said, we drink in the Grand Hall where great paintings cover the walls (and thickly, I might add) floor to ceiling, immersed in the overwhelming richness of the Louvre and take in as many rooms as possible where vast paintings such as The Wedding at Cana command an entire wall.
I love The Clubfooted Boy by Caravaggio. There are so many paintings I want to spend more time with if we are privileged to return.
Exiting through the glass pyramid, we pause to plot our Metro route to the Arc de Triomphe.
While we certainly want to see the famous Arc where the Champs-Elysee begins, we have a secondary reason for wanting to reach the landmark.
On the day before we left for France we learned that our next-door neighbor had been born in Paris and lived, until her early teens, on one of the 12 boulevards that radiate out from the Arc de Triomple. She'd said that not only could she see the Arc from her family's apartment, but, by leaning out the window, looking to the right, she could also peer at the Eiffel Tower.
So, once at street level, we turn down Avenue de Wagram and quickly succumb to the desire for a hamburger at the McDonald's there.
Once our hunger is satisfied we stroll down the street looking at apartment windows, imaging a petite blond girl looking at at two of the world's most famous landmarks
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