Arc de triomphe du Carrousel

The louvre was really incomparable to any other museum I’ve seen on the trip, or in my life at all. Lexi and I did a 2 hour guided tour and stayed for another 2 hours exploring on our own and I don’t think we covered even 5% of what is in there. I have never seen a museum of that scale, but despite its size and the fact that we visited at 9:30 AM on a Monday, I have never seen one so crowded either. The line to see the Mona Lisa was absolutely comical. We had an awesome tour with a very knowledgeable guide who showed us some of the most famous pieces in the French and Italian wings, as well as some of the historically significant jewelry and crowns that the museum has. Afterwards Lexi and I explored (some of) the Egyptian exhibit, which was super interesting because many of the artifacts were nearly 6000 years old - the exhibit went back to 4,000 BC. Surprisingly, it was difficult to understand what we were looking at in this wing as there were not many English translations of the placards explaining what the artifacts here. I did not know before the visit that the Louvre used to be the French palace before it was moved to Versailles. With that in mind, it was so ridiculously enormous that it made the Spanish royal palace look like a studio apartment. As huge as it is, the museum only takes up a fraction of what was once the palace. The palace (or at least sections of it) was built, expanded, destroyed, and rebuilt multiple times throughout French history, and you even get to explore the remains of the original fortress and moat when you enter the museum. The museum was so massive that it took Lexi and I over 45 minutes from deciding to leave to finding an exit. Super amazing - and exhausting - place.Читать далее