Louvre

Louvre is another place that needs no introduction. Unlike my visit to the Eiffel Tower, which was something I wasn’t particularly interested in doing, I was looking forward to visiting the Louvre. It was my favourite place in France, without any doubt and one of the best museums I’ve been to. If I’m in Paris again for a week, I will visit it again, this is how much I loved it. Of course, I was not interested in seeing Mona Lisa, but I did stop and joined the queue to see it. It would have been crazy not to. But, I didn’t take any selfies with it. I did take a selfie with a painting, of the Princes in the Tower!! A couple of people looked at me getting so excited about the painting and taking selfies and went to see the painting too. Without knowing the history, that painting is rather boring, a couple of children dressed in black.

The queue is over an hour if you have tickets and about an hour and a half if you don’t have tickets. Visiting the museums takes about 6 hours or 7 if you stop for drinks/food. The queues for the food establishments are long, so I skipped them. Another point is to take a map, the place is huge and you can get lost (even with the map, as it doesn’t have all the rooms listed).
Enjoy the pictures! I shared 29 of them. I will make short notes on a few, but ask me if you are curious about any other.

This is the tomb of Philippe Pot, who died in 1493. He was a counsellor to Louis XI. It was in a chapel in Burgundy, which was demolished during the revolution.
Philippe Pot commissioned his tomb during his lifetime.

This stunning sculpture dates back to 1530s. It was in the cemetery Holly Innocents in Paris. It had an arrow which was lost. On the shield there is a poem:
‘There is no living man
No matter his talent
Who can resist my sting
And deny worms their meal
Prey for the dead.’

The N on the throne stands for Napoleon. This was his throne, from 1804, when he named himself emperor.

This is the part in the museum about the history of Louvre as a fortress, prison, storehouse, and as a residential palace, before becoming a museum. The building’s foundations were laid in the 1360s-1370s.

Venus de Milo by Alexandros of Antioch

Galerie d’Apollon is where the French Crown Jewels are kept, as you can see them in the picture below. This was the first royal gallery in France, which was used as a model for the better-known Hall of Mirrors at the Château de Versailles.

There are a few jewels on display, including the French Crown Jewels. The display is gorgeous and very popular with the visitors.

Another attraction is the Mona Lisa. This is the queue to see the painting.

The Coronation of Napoleon by Jacques-Louis David, a well-known painting. It is so impressive, about 10 metres by 6 metres. I knew the painting very well, as I studied the French Revolution and the Napoleonic period, so it was very exciting to see it.

Seeing this was definitely a highlight for me, but another one that raised a few eyebrows from the fellow visitors. I knew this painting very well, of course. It was painted by Jacques-Louis David, like the one above, and it is entitled The Death of Marat.
Jean-Paul Marat was assassinated by Charlotte Corday on 13 July 1793. He was a leader of one of the factions during the French Revolution. His killer was one of his political opponents from another faction.

Liberty Leading the People by Eugène Delacroix became a symbol. If you remember the post with random pictures from Paris, it’s also a mural of Liberty with a Ukrainian flag.

Paul Delaroche was born in France in 1797 but he loved painting subjects from English history, as well as French history. The Princes in the Tower is from 1831 and he has painted the equally well known (for early modern historians) Execution of Lady Jane Grey, which is at the National Gallery in London.

I loved visiting Louvre and I bought a book from their gift shop about their collections. If I will visit again, which I hope I will, I will make a list of things I want to see, to make sure I don’t miss anything.