6 am wake up and then writing my travel notes from yesterday. Sleep was not bad. I expect no sleep from the foreign bed factor so I was surprised.

Breakfast at the hotel (Maison Eugenie)

– Fruit salad of apples, melon, raspberries, etc

– Two strawberry yogurts

– orange juice

– muesli, nuts and raisins

– pain au chocolate, citrus cake, marble cake

– croissant

– water

The Louvre

I arrived at 9 am and joined the line. Or at least I thought I did. A blonde lady was talking to a group I had inadvertently joined because they had themselves inadvertently joined the line. They spoke to me something which I didn’t understand and then the confusion was solved. Proving again that native speakers do not read signs.

Entry was easy. The building was beautiful and sublime, the future realised. I wandered first into the Michelangelo and Rodin exhibition with their sculptures alternating in a circle. I contrasted The Thinker with a copy of Moses. The exhibition was about energy in sculpture. They converted me. I was more into painting. Thoughts about Moses – the power of the law in his body, the monumental and larger than life – the sublimity of the law. The Thinker? The nakedness and vulnerability of thought.

Highlights and Portions Done

– Minister’s private apartments. The sheer opulence and magnificence of objets d’art.

French sculpture. 

– Eastern antiquities. One statuette had blue eyes and the curation had a statement that we all (my eyes can be blue) all descended from the same progenitor. 

– Obelisk of Manushtusu. Law and its importance, it’s relationship to conquest 

– Sumer: big man means king. But is the king a big man?

– Cyprus at the Louvre. Cross figures before Christ. These for childbirth. Showing that inventiveness always precedes us.

– The Louvre Medieval. Grey stone walls in a massive underground formation. Very impressive. The fortress of king Phillipe Auguste. Moat and keep. Really felt a piece of history.

– Polished sculptures after Praxiteles. The sheer smoothness of Ancient Greek art and its allure. I wanted to get back in the gym to weight train after seeing the ripped torsos!

– Venus de Milo. Victory of Samothrace. Mona Lisa. Amazing to see these masterpieces up close.

– My first sight of the Pyramid Louvre was in the Apollo Rotunda. A little blonde girl with burgundy dress and a little backpack put a clockwork chicken toy on the wooden seat as I looked so that is what I will associate the sight with!

– Ancient Italy

– French painting. Camille Corot – The woman with the pearl. Mysterious women locked in their own private world.

– Theodore Rousseau – Avenue of Chestnut Trees. Beautifully immersive.

– Eugene Delacroix – Young Orphan girl in the cemetery. Striking and lively.

Artworks loved 

Francois Biard – Magdalena Bay

Horace Vernet – Louise Vernet portrait

Louis Hersent – The monks of Saint Gothard

Theodore Chasseriau – The Two Sisters

Ary Scheffer – Saint Augustine and his mother

Ingres – The Bather, Turkish Bath

Marie Denise Villers – Self portrait of the artist tying her shoe

Hubert Robert – Antiquities – The Principal Monuments of France

Boucher – Diane Leaving her Bath

Elizabeth Louise Vigee Le Brun

Ancient Egypt

Martin Schongauer – Madonna of the Rose Bower

Martin Bernat – Saint Anthony tormented by demons

Verrocchio – Two Flying Angels

Gregor Erhart – Sainte Marie Madeleine

Canova Psyche Revived by Cupid’s kiss

Pierre Paul Prud’hon – The Soul Breaking the Ties that Bind her to Earth

Ary Scheffer – The Shades of Francesca da Rimini

Delacroix – Young Tiger Playing with its Mother

Jardin de Tuileries

I wandered in the gardens admiring the light and the beauty. I was surrounded by love. A Chinese couple were marrying in black wedding dress and black sunglasses while being photographed which I photographed. A young man approached a voluptuous blonde tattooed woman with a red rose to ask for her number. I ate a chocolate and caramelised almond ice cream in a terraced cafe next to a lovely green pond with green bronze statues.

The Gaston Lachaise ‘Standing Woman’ sculpture showed a striking female form.

Place de la Concorde – Vivre Ensemble. A Photo exhibition of France in statistics and facts which had some quite striking photos of groups of people.

The Smiths and Son mini museum was the next stop, a little room as a whole museum! All about W H Smith. A kind of wooden box in it and lots of photographs. Amazing. I had a conversation in French to find directions to the next bookshop where I bought all the Harry Potters in French.

Une journée au XVIIIe siècle, chronique d’un hôtel particulier

A walk back to the Musee d’arts Decoratifs where I saw the eighteenth century house exhibition. Interesting contrast to living today as someone not fantastically rich and with no employees. Lots of kids drawing the exhibits. Also looked at the jewellery exhibition in the permanent collection and the Orient Express exhibition again!

Dinner at Cafe du Louvre – Formule du jour

The young waiter who spoke English really looked after me and praised my French. A beautiful red restaurant.

Entree – French onion soup. Salty, savoury. With submerged bread and cheese. The first time in a French restaurant!

Main – Beef bourguignon, mashed potatoes. My first authentic version again. Such tender meat, so beautifully seasoned.

Dessert – chocolate mousse with Chantilly cream. Okayish. Again my first authentic French mousse.

Gourmet coffee. Very bitter! I’m not a coffee person but it was on the set menu.

Grazie Mille mocktail. The one thing I didn’t like as it had ginger in it. I got it because the waiter recommended it.

The Missing Eiffel Tower

I took a wrong turning after having spontaneouslt decided to go to the Eiffel tower and ended up in the night in a park at La Defense. On the journey back I saw some recent graduates with the hats and got a double decker tube for the first time in my life!