Its finally open!

Thursday we decided was going to be museum day. And it started off a good day to go the museum, since the temperature had dropped and it was much cooler/rainier than it had been all week.

We started off with breakfast and headed for the Metro to check out la Musee Rodin (Rodin's Museum) which along with the Louvre, were now open. Yay!

We opted to go to the Rodin Museum first, as it was rainy and we figured everyone would want to go inside. The Rodin Museum has both outdoor and indoor exhibits.

Stunning, truly stunning. If you are ever able to finagle a trip to Paris, this would be a must see. Both my husband and I agree that while the outside gardens and layout are nice, the bronze statues don't really do it for us. The marble statues found inside, however were amazing.









After we toured the museum, we headed off to the Louvre. We crossed yet another bridge (there must be 20 bridges that cross the Seine) and headed east towards the Louvre.

The weather had improved but was still not as hot as the previous few days. We stopped for lunch at a stand operated by Paul, a boulangerie in Paris. We had a fantastic baguette but an even more amazing rhubarb tart. I could eat those tarts for every meal for the rest of my life. Its so hard to find decently priced rhubarb where we live and despite my best efforts to grow it, I only kill it.

We made our way through to the Louvre, paid our entrance and scoped out what we really wanted to see. Our legs were really starting to get tired so we knew we needed to limit our outing.

Now, I've seen a few exhibitions of Renoir, Monet, Picasso and Corot back when I lived in Ottawa, so I had two goals for my visit, see the Mona Lisa and see the Venus de Milo. Pretty basic and very fulfillable. Not seeing these two artifacts would be like going to Egypt and not seeing the Pyramids.

We headed off to the Italian painters section in search of the Mona Lisa. Don't get me wrong, the paintings are spectacular. The colours as vivid as the day they were painted, but the surroundings, OMG. The building and its adornments were almost more breathtaking that the actual exhibits. And of course, because I was allowed to use my camera, I can show you too!

BTW, the Mona Lisa is a much smaller painting than you'd think and the Venus de Milo is quite impressive but so are all the other busts.

Head over to Would you stop staring at the ceiling? for more pictures of our trip to the Louvre.