Mona Lisa Chaos

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This morning we've booked a short guided tour of the highlights of the Louvre. While we're waiting for it to start I'm approached by a gypsy girl. She asks me if I speak English, and then asks me to sign a petition for a charity. I've read about this; it's one of many scams in use here in Paris. The charities are fake. They ask you if you speak English to minimise the chances that you'll understand the petition, which is in French, and after you sign they tell you that you've committed to give them money, and that you have a legal obligation to cough up.

Our guide introduces himself as Xavier. He tells us that the Louvre was originally built as a fortress, but it eventually became the royal palace, and French kings lived here until Louis XIV moved the court to Versailles in the late 17th century. The glass pyramid, which now forms the entrance and dominates the square outside, was built in 1989 to celebrate the bicentenary of the French Revolution. Xavier tells us that there are 36,000 exhibits on display here, and even if you only spent 30 seconds in front of each you'd still be here for six months. I'm not sure the maths of this quite works out, but we nevertheless get the message that this is indeed a very large museum.

Entry is via the pyramid, and escalators then take us down to a lower level. Our first stop is a long five metre high wall which Xavier tells us is part of the original fortress. It was only discovered during excavations to build the new entrance. We continue up a large flight of stairs to the apparently famous "Winged Victory" statue of the Greek goddess Nike from the second century BC. .... and I thought Nike was only famous for making running shoes.

Next stop is the famous Venus de Milo statue, which is perhaps unsurprisingly surrounded by a large crowd. Xavier tells us that she was found lying in a paddock by a Greek peasant in the early 1800s. He says that the Greeks didn't really value their ancient statues all that much back in the 1800s, so it wasn't all that uncommon to find some of them just lying around. Western Europe was however very keen to get its hands on Greek antiquities. Apparently there's a long running rivalry between the Louvre and the British Museum, and the Louvre pounced on the Venus de Milo at about the same time as the British Museum managed to get its hands on the Elgin Marbles from the Parthenon. The Greek government is now very keen to get these and other priceless masterpieces back. Maybe they could get them back and sell them; the cash would probably come in handy right about now. The Venus de Milo didn't have any arms when she was found, and Xavier says that art scholars have spent many a late night trying to work out what these might have looked like. Apparently there's a lot of disagreement on the subject. I've always wondered what art scholars did. Now I know. They sit around late at night trying to guess what a bit of art work might have looked like if it had all its bits.

Next on the itinerary is the Mona Lisa. There are signs throughout here pointing to what is I suspect the world's most famous painting, and I doubt anyone comes here without seeing her. The crowd around her makes the one around the Venus de Milo look a intimate gathering. It's also very disorderly. There's a wide roped off area in front of the iconic portrait and lots of security guards are trying unsuccessfully to maintain order. There's lots of pushing and shoving, and everyone's trying to take photos from as close up as they can get. The guards are constantly telling the crowd to be quiet. I'm not quite sure why. We're not in a church. I try to take a picture of the crowd from the side as a momento of the chaos, but one of the guards gets very angry and tells me that this is not allowed. I'm not sure why, and Xavier isn't either. I wonder if perhaps she's worried that I'll use it as evidence of her failure to maintain order. I wait until she's not looking and take my memento picture anyway. Xavier tells us that the Mona Lisa only really became famous when she was stolen, and up until that time another Leonardo da Vinci painting was more well known. One of the Louvre's guards snuck her out hidden inside his coat one night back in 1911, and then hid her in his apartment in Paris for two years. His status as one of the museum's trusted employees meant he was never a suspect. Eventually he took her to Italy where he started showing her off to his friends. He wasn't particularly discrete, and this eventually led to his arrest. These days she sits behind layers of bullet and flash photography proof glass, and Xavier says that she's better protected than the French president.

There seem to be a disproportionately large number of Asian tourists here. I'm starting to suspect that their homelands must be so crowded that the only way of getting anywhere is by pushing and shoving everyone else out of the way. This has been happening to us here all morning, and no one ever apologises, they just barge on. I'm standing still with my hands on my hips listening to Xavier when a young Asian man crashes into me from side on, with no hint of an apology. I feel my thumb start to come out of its socket. I'm not happy. Issy says it's my own fault and that I shouldn't have been standing like that with so much chaos all around us. I'm in too much pain to argue.

You're allowed to take photos in the Louvre, provided you don't use a flash, and no one seems to be holding back. Some visitors look like they're taking photos of almost every exhibit, even ones they've never heard of before, and won't remember anything about five minutes after they walk out of here. I wonder how many of these photos will ever get looked at again, and why they take them in the first place. Maybe it's to remember what the art looks like, but I would have thought that if you wanted to do that these days you'd just Google it. The other advantage of the Google approach is that the pictures won't be out of focus or have the top of someone's head sticking up in the foreground. Maybe they assume no one will believe they've been here unless they've got photos to prove it, but even then I'm not sure you'd need a snap of every exhibit. Each to their own I suppose.

We catch the metro to Montmartre station which seems to be under a hill. The spiral staircase that leads out of it keeps going up seemingly forever so it feels like we're climbing a ten storey building. It's a pity we can't count this as a tower. We catch a furnicular up to the famous Basilica, which we understand is on the highest point in Paris. There are signs everywhere inside telling people that they have to be silent, reinforced by a man whose job seems to be to say "shoosh" every few seconds. I hope he’s being paid.

We walk on to the crowded main square of the artists' quarter, where artworks are being produced as we watch. I ask Issy how she'd go painting with 100 people looking over her shoulder. She tells me that her art group once painted outside in a park. She says she got a vague sense that someone might have been watching her, so she packed up and went home. I don't think she'd go too well here. We have lunch in the square. The waiters are all decked out in Parisian gear complete with berets, striped shirts and braces. Two men approach us from the crowd and ask us where we're from. They have scissors which they use to start cutting into small pieces of paper, and we quickly realise that they're producing our silhouettes. This takes them less than a minute. When they've finished they put them in a clear plastic envelope with a card saying something about Paris and tell us that we need to give them 40 Euros. Forty Euros for a minute's work is good money, but unfortunately for them they're going to have to get it from someone else.

We catch the metro back to the hotel. It seems to be a remarkably efficient system. It generally takes the trains less than a minute to get from one station to the next, and the doors then only stay open for a few seconds. You pay the same price for every trip irrespective of whether it's to go one stop or thirty. Issy makes a fair point that this would be a bit irritating if you only ever wanted to go a short distance.

We have a siesta and get ready for our dinner at the restaurant up the Eiffel Tower. Issy tells me that I need to wear a proper shirt and long pants, and that I need to iron them. I haven't really thought too much about ironing since we left home. One of the downsides of small hotel rooms is that there's nowhere to hide, not even when you're ironing. Issy watches me. I feel like an artist at Montmartre. She tells me that I'm making lots of mistakes. I tell her that I've ironed a shirt for work every day for decades, but she says this doesn't mean that I know how to do it properly. Maybe I don't. I hope that if I make enough mistakes maybe she'll do it for me, but this approach proves to be unsuccessful.

We walk to the Eiffel Tower, collect our tickets, and get the lift up to the restaurant which is on the first level. Our seats are right next to the window overlooking the Trocadero, and we get there just before sunset so we get to see the view in both daylight and at night. The restaurant's very formal. It might be formal, but there are finger marks all over the window next to us, so I grab my serviette and spend a couple of minutes trying to wipe them off. Issy's embarrassed. She tells me that I've got no class and that she can't take me anywhere. The food is an excellent four course set menu, and they don't skimp on the alcohol. We get a glass of champagne when we arrive, followed by two half bottles of white wine and a bottle of red. The forks have three prongs, and the middle one's in the shape of the Eiffel Tower. Issy says she wonders how many of these get taken home. We take a quick after dinner stroll around the first level. There are swings and bean bags for people to sit on, and even exercise bikes for diners to burn off their excess food. We stroll back to the hotel. We agree that this evening has been a really magical experience.

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Comments

[maree young]

Enjoyed your trip to the Lourve & dinner at the Eiffel tower. Felt like I was there too ! P.s. did you pinch a fork ?