DAY 10- the Louvre, June 11th, 2014

The Louvre! How do you pronounce it? Its the same problem as trying to pronounce Brett's last name Favre! As I understand it they are both very long single syllables.

The Post-modern (yawn) entrance to the Louvre designed by famed architect I. M. Pei. Nobody understands the Egyptian? pyramid reference, but who cares? Underneath the pyramid is a huge space that connects you to the 3 main Louvre buildings and galleries, and a giant underground shopping mall (yaa)!

I have to admit, the Louvre collections are incredible. If you want to wander through 17th century Flemish paintings or 15th century Italian sculptures, they got them. The most impressive to me were some of the middle-eastern collections- artifacts from Syria and Iran for example, going back 8000 years or more, including an amazing display of all kinds of Bronze Age tools. These folks were technologically advanced.

Above we see an actual column capital from Persepolis during the reign of Darius I somewhere around 500 BC. Keep in mind that this capital sat atop a 60' tall column......also keep in mind that an archaeologist somehow got this capital to France in the 1850's.

There are a heck of a lot of artifacts here from many countries, like Iran, which begs the question, how come these artifacts are sitting in a French museum? Aren't they a part of Iranian heritage and isn't Iran the rightful owner of them? Alright, enough of political questions! On to more artifacts!

One can only take about 4 hours of Louvreing, so we hit the shopping mall! It even has an inverted pyramid. Take that Egypt!

We go to the Apple Store, what else? Then we get the heck out of there for a stroll down the Jardin des Tuluries, a very nice public park designed by the same guy that did Versailles, only better. This truly is a public park with hundreds of Parisians out for a Wednesday afternoon in the sun. Nobody is working!

On to the Eiffel Tower tomorrow......