European Odyssey- Day Two: Paris, Louvre, Eiffel Tower

In my hotel room late the night before, after having completed room checks of the students, updating the social media sites for the parents back home, and let’s not forget the lack of sleep from the previous travel days, I was all ready, and excited, for bed time, when something awful happened.  I dropped my toothbrush in the toilet!  And, being sleep-deprived and anxious about my dumb mistake, I flushed the toilet- the precarious, temperamental European toilet.  Incidentally, I no longer had a toothbrush but this was also the time when I needed a toothbrush more than ever- I probably shouldn’t admit this but I hadn’t brushed my teeth in over 36 hours, since I left Ohio the day before.  So I got dressed and went down to the lobby. I was, however, excited to get to use my French!  So I went downstairs and told the attendant on duty my situation- that I had forgotten my toothbrush at home (you really thought I was going to admit that I had potentially broken their whole water system- no way Jose- I mean Pierre!)  Unfortunately they had JUST given their last toothbrush to a student (hey- weren’t they supposed to be in bed already?) so I had to make due with the old use-my-finger-as-a-toothbrush system.  And the unfortunate thing was, even in the morning I couldn’t go to the store to buy a new toothbrush because stores in France don’t open until after 9, and since we had quite a long commute into the city that morning, I was not going to be able to go and buy a toothbrush.  However, at breakfast when I admitted my previous evenings mistake, a student told me they had packed not one, but three extra toothbrushes (gosh, she must flush them down the toilet all the time!) so I was able to brush my teeth the remainder of my time in Europe, thank goodness, right?!

So, back to the itinerary for the day.  We boarded our coach and headed to one of the largest, but definitely the most visited, museums in the world, the Louvre.  Now comes your history lesson.  The Louvre was initially built as a fortress in the 12th century.  If you go into the lower levels of the Louvre you can actually see some of the original walls of the fortress. Throughout the years it was worked and added on to, particularly by King François I who was an avid art fan and brought Leonardo da Vinci to France (they were so close that Leo was next to François’s bedside when the king died and which is why you can see the famous Mona Lisa at the Louvre) to become the Louvre palace that you can visit today. Because of King Francois I, there was already a vast collection of artwork at the Louvre when Louis XIV decided to move the royal residence to Versailles (see the previous post), and there have been art for public viewing in the Louvre since 1747.  This worked to its advantage during the French Revolution, when the crowds were destroying most anything that reminded them of the royalty and the advantage they had over the “common” people, instead the National Assembly decided to declare it as a national museum for all people in 1793, and its been adding pieces ever since.  Today, there are more than 35,000 works of art that you could visit in any of the 8 departments (antiquities, prints, paintings, etc.) In 1983 architect I.M. Pei was given the project to build the glass pyramid to serve as the entrance to the museum (that’s also who designed the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in Cleveland- the Ohio girl in me wants to point out), though if you are  traveling by metro you can arrive at the underground shopping area directly underneath the museum. If you are planning a visit, keep in mind that it is said that it would take 9 months to see every single thing in the Louvre, if you spent 60 seconds at each piece and came during the hours the museum is open.  The first Sunday of every month admission is free, as well as if you are 18 or under.  For us old folks, admission is 15 euros.

This is the third of the three Paris ‘grand ax’ arches I mentioned in the previous day’s blog

 

For our visit that day, we broke the delegates up into groups were given a paper telling us how to see the most popular sites in the Louvre with facts about the works of art.  The group I was with was perfect for me- other tourist nerds/ art lovers who were very excited about seeing all they could.  It was a very crowded day at the museum so I told my group they could take their time walking through the  rooms, taking in the art as they wanted, as long as we met back up at the other side of the room to continue on together.
 

Some of the things we took in were:

1) Winged Victory

2) The Mona Lisa by Leonardo Da Vinci (did you know the only times the Mona Lisa hasn’t always been on display for the public were when Napoleon Bonaparte hung her in his personal bedroom, during the two times it was hidden during wars- included World War II so the Nazis couldn’t get her, and when it was stolen in 1911 and went missing for 2 years)

3) The Raft of the Medusa by Théodore Géricault

4) Venus de Milo

5) Lady Liberty Leading the People by Eugene Delacroix

6) The French Crown Jewels

We only had a couple hours in the Louvre- and it wasn’t enough, but at least we saw a lot of the major sites. Here are some of the other sites we took in during our time in the museum.
 
 

After our meeting time we had lunch in the international cafeteria in the shopping area under the Louvre.

My favorite- Orangina! La maison du Chocolat- House of Chocolate.  This is where I would like to live

Then, it was time for the highlight of most people’s trip to Paris- the Eiffel Tower!!! We hopped on the coach and drove to the Trocadero to take the obligatory group pics, before heading across the street to go up the Eiffel Tower.

Luckily, our tickets were bought in advance so the wait on the street-level wasn’t too long.  We boarded the elevator and rode straight up to the second floor, where one has to have another ticket to ride a different elevator to go all the way to the top.  The other options are  to take the stairs to the second floor, but you have to ride an elevator to the third level.  Fact time!  I think most everyone knows that the Eiffel Tower was built by Gustave Eiffel (who also designed the interior of the State of Liberty and who had an apartment at the top of the structure) in 1889 for the World’s Fair that was being held in Paris for the 100th anniversary of the French Revolution.  When it was built it was considered an eye-sore by the public, and they were glad that it was to be demolished in 1909.  The tower’s saving grace is that it was a great radio antenna, and that is why we have it still today! The Tower is of course the most-visited paid-for monument in the world, but one person who didn’t have to privilege of riding the elevator to the top was Hitler: the French cut the cables during his time in Paris so he would have to climb.  The Eiffel Tower’s height varies depending on the temperature (up to 5.9 inches) but on the day that we visited it was 986 feet, the tallest building in the world when it was constructed.