Sometimes you win, sometimes you Louvre

We smashed out some culture today! Making up for a lost day yesterday due to the strike, we headed first to the Pantheon 🏛. An amazing building (haven’t mentioned the impressive architecture for awhile 😉) that was built a long time ago (dates are a bit fuzzy) but still looks like it could have been designed last year. The crypts underneath are beautiful (if there ever was an oxymoron, that would be it- beautiful crypts) and the girls expertly navigated us to the one tomb we have all been hanging on to see- Madame Marie Curie. Such significance she holds to our house, that it was even more apt that we visited her on international women’s day. Our girls have read about her discoveries since they were tiny, and even Nick and I had a star crossed moment, when reading about her and Pierres contributions to science- he the discoverer of Piezoelectric effect (the basis for ultrasound) and her the scientist to discover radium and polonium (the basis for some radiation that nuclear medicine uses). We were a little (a lot) in awe that the founders of the first sparks of our fields were lying entombed before us. Even the girls seemed to understand the significance, and were in awe of where they were and who was lying before them. It really was a special moment that we jagged before the hoards of school groups came trudging past.
We made our way to Museum D’Orsay, after the Louvre were having a minor breakdown due to yesterday’s protest, and it didn’t disappoint. Full credit to the girls, they were SO into looking at the art here. They have shown lots of interest on and off in art since they were little, and it was quite astounding listening to them excitedly rattling off names of artists and paintings as we walked past them (I was a little overwhelmed at actually seeing these masterpieces in the flesh; rooms and rooms of famous artists that I have seen in books actually physically right THERE in front of our eyes!)
Our kids are no where near perfect, and far from highly cultured! But I was absolutely astounded at our little people pointing out artists like Seurat (Audrey- commenting that his most famous painting wasn’t there….. sorry… what?!) and Olive telling me he used ‘pointillism’ as his painting technique… and she liked Degas because he painted the ballerinas but Monet was still her favourite. Yep… I need to give our kids more credit!!
So after the kids took Nick and I on a guided tour of the gallery (we paid them in chocolate eclairs…) we got really lucky and squeezed into last minute tickets to the Louvre (because we hadn’t smashed the culture enough today!). The girls really only wanted to see one thing- the Mona Lisa. We found her by the 750 phones in the air wildly snapping pictures of the smaller than expected painting. The girls snuck into the front of the Instagram hungry crowd, and managed to get a good look at her (and a couple of photos). Nick and I have seen her before, and I know a lot of people think she is underwhelming (mostly due to her size… like most things underwhelming…) but we all agreed she really was something very special to behold.
We walked around getting very lost for the next hour or so (the Egyptian section and King Louis apartments were definite highlights) before we took our weary little feet home. 22,000+ steps, heads full of inspiration and happy hearts for our last night in France.Read more