Paris, Lundi, le 22 mars — Today, we tackled the Louvre. Everyone slept well last night because all the rugby fans had gone home, and it was blissfully quiet outside the hotel. We had our usual croissant from Gerard Mulot around the corner and then headed off on foot for the Louvre, a short walk away across the Seine. It was an unexpectedly clear and fresh morning, no clouds in sight, as we walked along the Seine toward the enormous palace that now houses the Musee du Louvre. Will exclaimed that if stood on its end, it would be as tall as the Empire State Building.

We had purchased tickets yesterday so were thankfully spared the freakishly long line leading to ticket sales in I.M. Pei’s glass pyramid entrance. Mitchell and Alex went their own way to explore, and the rest of us headed straight for the ancient Greek, Etruscan, Roman and Egyptian antiquities. For anyone who hasn’t been to the Louvre, it’s like a labyrinth in there, very hard to navigate all the stairs and levels and twists and turns. It puts poor ‘lil Mrs. Winchester to shame. The biggest (and really only) bummer was that much of the archaic Greek art, along with ALL THE POTTERY, were closed from view for renovations, which was a heartbreak to me. But there was plenty else to see in the three-hours we alloted ourselves. It was pleasant at first, not crowded, but by noon it was a sweltering mass of humanity and tour groups and totally despicable people fondling the statues. What is wrong with people?

Anyway, back to the good stuff. We saw the Mona Lisa — on Will’s insistence. The whole experience was summed up by a Japanese man, who pushed past us through the crowd surrounding the painting and declared, “Mimashita!” Which is the one-word Japanese sentence, “I saw (it).” So we mimashita’d and vamoosed past the Botticellis and DaVincis and Titians at breakneck speed to get back to our beloved antiquities. None of this Renaissance modern art for us.

We particularly enjoyed the statues of the Roman emperors, especially Will. As Rick and I blazed ahead, Will said critically, “You’re going a bit fast.” Oh, joy to a mother’s ears, he’s becoming a museum lover. We especially loved the art from Persian King Darius in the late 6th century B.C., these amazing wall murals made of green stone that were completely spectacular. There were the double-bull capitals of these enormous columns, the size of which was hard to imagine. I was completely blown away by the 3rd to 2nd millenium B.C. Near Eastern/Iranian pottery that sported the geometric patterns that reappeared on Greek pottery after the Dark Ages around the turn of the 1st millenium B.C. I think if I could reinvent myself I’d come back as an art historian of the Middle East.

At noon, with the crowds getting stifling, we headed for a local restaurant filled with French businessmen and had a lunch (burgers for Mitchell and Alex, the charcuterie plate for Will) and then took the metro to the catacombs — underground passages literally decorated with the bones of thousands of people from the 17th and earlier centuries. I was creeped out and didn’t want to go, but was outvoted. Much to my delight and the rest’s dismay, they were closed on Monday. So we trekked back to our hotel, where we are resting and preparing for the night out with Eric and Chrystele and the Tour Eiffel, which we were too tired to see last night.