The Louvre is the largest museum on earth occupying nearly 73,000 square meters of space and roughly 500,000 objects and 35,000 works of art. Today we visited this famous museum and while the size of the museum can be overwhelming to tackle, visiting was an incredible experience. We started out altogether as a group to first visit the Mona Lisa, the famous artwork created by Leonardo da Vinci through its mysterious depiction of an italian woman. A big reason for its fame was that the painting was stolen for a period of time. It was an experience like no other to stand just feet away from the famous painting.

Following the visit of the Mona Lisa we went as a group to visit the French paintings section. It was interesting to see events depicted in the paintings that have been previously learned about. On Day 5 when we learned about the revolutionaries in Paris we saw the house where Jean-Paul Marat was stabbed and assassinated by Charlotte Corday 1793 while in his bathtub. At the Louvre the painting The Death of Marat was displayed painted by Jacques-Louis David. It was fascinating to hear the history behind the moment to then see the physical depiction represented within the museum. Another interesting painting we saw was the Coronation of Napoleon also by Jacques-Louis David. It spanned a large amount of the room reaching 6 meters high and spanning almost 10 meters wide. 

After exploring this section our group broke off into smaller groups to explore different areas of interest within the Louvre. After perusing through the area containing paintings from Great Britain, the United States, France, and Italy we made our way to the Greek and Roman Antiquities which were then followed by the Egyptian Antiquities. This was interesting because when I thought of the Louvre I thought of primarily paintings as the main form of art present as opposed to sculptures and objects as well. Next my group made our way to the Decorative Arts and Europe section which contained fascinating displays and setups. Some of the eye-catching displays included Mary Antionette’s bedroom and furniture sets. One last room I found interesting on level 1 of the Louvre was section 705 which contained the French Crown Jewels in The Galerie d’Apollon. This room, despite being gorgeous due to decoration and design, contained the remaining pieces of the French Crown Jewels which I found to be very interesting.

After spanning the entire level we went down to level 0 to explore. This floor contained mostly antiquities and sculptures as opposed to paintings. The Egyptian Antiquities were especially fascinating to me because I feel like I do not experience physical art or see photos of that type of art in the United States. Additionally we visited the rest of the sections on that floor and then decided to briefly visit level 2 containing Paintings from France. An amusing aspect of this trip was that our group of 6 each found a doppelganger painting of ourselves and took a picture with it. While it was not identical representations it was interesting how similar we looked to some of the paintings. As we were wrapping up our time in the museum there was a pop up section for Chinese art located close to an exit that we briefly explored. I thought this was a unique addition because it was not the famous works inside the Louvre at all times but it brought a new variety of artwork to the area to be explored. As the time in the museum hit late afternoon we had walked over 4 miles within the museum and had climbed 27 flights of stairs while exploring. A large amount of art had been viewed and it was definitely a successful day at the museum, but the night was not done! 

After leaving the museum we took the metro back to the hotel for a short bit to sit down and relax before dinner. A group of 8 of us had made the decision to do a picnic dinner at the eiffel tower. We met up in the lobby of our hotel at 8pm and all headed to the market to collect different ingredients for our picnic. An assortment of baguettes, croissants, meats, cheeses and fruit were all collected to be brought to the picnic. We took the metro from line 4 to line 6 to get to the eiffel tower where we set up our blanket and food in a grassy park area. As we enjoyed our picnic we bonded with each other and enjoyed the beautiful views of the eiffel tower at night. We got to see the eiffel tower sparkle at 11pm and we got to see the unique sparkle at 12am where the tower sparkles white. It was an incredible experience that I will not forget, the people and the place make it all worthwhile!