More Explorations in Paris: Montmartre, the Louvre

---

Geo: 48.8567, 2.35099

Long, narrow freight liners sail past our boat fairly frequently, as do occasional clear-topped tour boats. The Seine is a working river, and Parisians love it. 488 miles long, with 25 locks, its source is the Plateau de Langres in the Burgundy region of France; its mouth, where our sail will end, is LeHavre, a port town in Normandy. Tidal currents can reach 5 knots or 9 km per hour, but as I look out the window I just see that it is flowing very quickly by. A restless river, perpetually rushing to explore new vistas; this is familiar to me.

Waking up after our second night sleeping on the rushingly high Seine, the grey view outside my window has also become familiar. Cloudy skies, bare trees, and on the opposite side of the river is a constant line of cars, vans, motorcycles all hurrying to work. This is the Paris I see on a weekday morning. We are docked on the Left Bank, the intellectual or philosopher's side of Paris; this side is for thinkers. The Right Bank is for shoppers, so we've been told. From what I've seen so far, I prefer being on the Left Bank.

Yesterday morning we had a tour of the city's classic highlights. Meeting tons of traffic partly because roads were closed for the King and Queen of the Netherlands' visit, congestion slowed our progress, but we saw Paris's traffic at its worst. Not so bad as in Bangkok, or what I've heard about gridlock in NYC (although my friend Dolores begs to differ), but I wasn't driving, and was already where I needed and wanted to be. So it wasn't at all unpleasant to experience this aspect of Paris too. (Maybe the bus driver felt differently.)

Today we spent the morning meandering through Montmartre. Since it was early in the day, and March, there weren't yet crowds of people to enhance (or smudge) the experience. Pretty houses tucked away on curving by-ways, a quick stop inside the Sacre Coeur Basilica, looking down the steep stairways leading to the bottom of the hill, listening to street musicians playing harp and accordion, watching street artists at work, here was Montmartre. Lovely and lively, but a friend and I left the group early to spend our afternoon at the Louvre; this is our last day in Paris, and I could not miss going there. Both of us are comfortable riding international subways, so we took the #2 and then the #1 metros to emerge right at the old entrance to the Louvre. Such excitement! Truly. I have wanted to come here for many years, and have finally made it! This is the most visited museum in the world, and for good reason. We walked through ancient archways to find the glass pyramid, another, but much newer, icon of Paris.

The lovely Grande Pyramide was designed by I. M. Pei in 1981, opened to the public --with mixed opinions and reviews-- in 1989. Of course we gazed at the Mona Lisa, but I was more captivated by the groups of young schoolchildren who were sketching the painting, their drawings looking like the typical stick figures children draw. But what a wonderful field trip for them! What memories they will have of spending time in the Louvre, sketching the Mona Lisa! We passed by the Winged Victory of Samothrace countless times, admiring it each time; we hunted out Aphrodite, and Vermeer's "The Lacemaker," and many other paintings and sculptures, but my favorites were in the Denon wing: two of Leonardo da Vinci's paintings of Mary and Jesus, one with Saint Anne, both mothers gazing at the baby with exquisite expressions of love that only da Vinci could capture, and the other (whose name I cannot remember) with John and another baby, both children pointing towards baby Jesus, all confusingly sitting in front of a cave. These two paintings fascinated me, held me spellbound; I don't know how long I stood there, being lost in their stories. Maybe if one had a full year to explore the Louvre it would be possible to study everything, but I think maybe even that length of time would be just touching the surface.

Our Louvre adventure ended with a crowded bus ride back to the Bizet; a highschool girls' team of Brazilian soccer players squeezed onto the #42 bus to ride in rush hour traffic, happily disembarking at the Eiffel Tower. I wished them well, and hoped they made it to the top. My friend and I got back to the boat just in time to turn our boarding passes in before the ship set sail. We leave Paris tonight.

---

Comments

[Joan, MS roommate]

Happy you made it to the Louvre. Did you hear about ISIS hitting Brussels? Good thing we went last year. Continue having fun!