What a beautiful rainy day in Paris!
Rain is so welcome after the last 3 weeks of heat during our travels. Sweat has been our enemy and we're glad to have a dry moment!
Today we had a lazy morning and ventured out for brunch around noon. We spent the afternoon shopping and enjoying the quieter Paris this time around, without the craziness of thousands of tourists during July coinciding with the Tour De France. After shopping we headed back to the hotel for Rossco's final parisian swim and then made a our way to the Louvre for our final tour of this trip.
We had opted to complete our tour of the Louvre on our second visit to Paris in the hope that the crowds would have subsided. We arrived for our evening semi-private tour at 6:15pm, with only 4 of us in tour group. There were still plenty of people around, however the crowds were not the same intensity we had seen lurking outside the mornings at the Louvre. On meeting our guide he advised that the evening is actually when the Parisians like to visit the Louvre as it is time the least tourists come as they usually all cram in at the opening sessions of the day.
The Louvre is huge, and there was far more to see than the 3 hours would allow. Our tour focused mainly on European Art - paintings and sculpture. We were delighted though to get a quick glimpse of some of the Egyptian pieces such as the Colossal Statue of Ramesses II, and jewellery collections. Our European viewing included statues such as; Aphrodite (known as Venus de Milo), Michelangelo's Captive (the dying slave) as well as other unfinished works, and Canova's Psyche and Cupid. Paintings included multiple by David with the highlight being the Consecration of Napoleon, works by Veronese with the highlight being The Wedding Feast at Cana (an alternate last supper), and we saw 5 of the 7 Da Vinci works including La Jonconde (The Mona Lisa). With barely any crowds we were really able to get up close to these works and enjoy them.
We ended our last evening in Paris in a Bistroit around the corner from the Louvre, enjoying some fine french food and a bottle of Beaujolais, planning our next trip to Paris!