The Louvre, Paris

Today was one of the days I was really looking forward to, although I don’t think my feet were - it was going to be another big one. First up for the day was a visit to the famous Louvre Museum. We had heard so much about the line-ups for the Louvre, even with prepaid tickets, that we made sure we were there bright and early. We were so early in fact, that there was only one other person there when we arrived, and funnily enough, he was from Sydney. It was great to be able to photograph and admire the Louvre without the thousands of tourists surrounding it and we enjoyed chatting to other people in line while we waited. It made the waiting time go quickly.

It wasn't until we were in the Louvre that I realised how huge the actual museum was. The origin of the Louvre dates back to the 1200s and the buildings are just as impressive as the art on display. Once a royal residence, it became a museum in 1793 during the French Revolution and is now home to artworks dating from the 7th millennium BC to the 1850s. The collections are displayed on five levels, in three interconnecting wings and it was very easy to get lost.

First stop was of course to see the most famous of all art, Leonardo da Vinci's Mona Lisa. And she did not disappoint. The Mona Lisa has been described as "the best known, the most visited, the most written about, the most sung about, the most parodied work of art in the world". It is also one of the most valuable paintings in the world. It holds the Guinness World Record for the highest known insurance valuation in history at $100 million in 1962, which is worth nearly $800 million in 2017. Once again, we were very lucky with regards to the crowds and didn't have to line up to see the painting up close.

Next stop was the famous statue, La Venus de Milo. Discovered in April 1820 on the island of Melos in the Cyclades (Greece), the statue is believed to depict Aphrodite, goddess of Love, known to the Romans as Venus. This masterpiece of Greek marble sculpture, whose sculptor is unknown, is dated from about 120 BC. It is so hard to fathom that works of art from so long ago are still around today for us to admire.

After visiting the main iconic pieces of art, we enjoyed some time wandering through the Louvre and admiring the many other masterpieces on display. There were quite a few random pieces that I really liked, that took me back to my high school art classes. I think the Louvre is one of those places you could visit every time you go to Paris and you will always discover something you haven’t seen before. It was an amazing way to start the day.Read more