La Joconde

July 30th, Friday

My first full day in Paris had promise to be a fantastic day. I would not be without my camera this time around and the plan for this day began as everyday in Paris would; waking up in a flat in a great location.

This day included some of the sites from the night before, as well as having dinner with more former flatmates and friends from Australia. The morning began with a walk to The Louvre, but stopping along the way to see other sites.

The first such site was Notre Dame. It was still relitively early so the cathedral was not nearly as busy as I had seen it pretty much every other time. This made for the perfect oppurtunity to go and see it!

This was how I recognised it, on the inside the stained glass window was quite impressive!


This was the view as we approached the island that Notre Dame is on.

A sign said no pictures inside the cathedral and inspite of everyone else seeming to ignore this rule, and not hiding the fact either, I honoured the rule. I just have mental images of the huge inside and the huge stain glassed windows of which words cannot describe.

The Louvre had similar unfollowed rules. I once again took only pictures of the outside, although to me the outside is what impressed me most. The museum was huge. Not all that surprising considering the King used to live there before Versaille was built.

This is just one of several sides. Behind is another building like this and a court yard surrounded by more buildings.

The giant Pyramid is the entrance into the museum. On top of the massive buildings all around the main floor is all under the pavement.

I was quite impressed with what I saw on the outside, by the sheer enorminity of the place. On the inside I saw a ton of famous paintings, the real paintings of things I had seen numerous times before. I am not big into art, so I more less just walked around. I saw the Mona Lisa, perhaps the most famous. There were cool paintings depicting different historical events which I found interesting, but the coolest was easily just being outside.

After the Louvre we went to a large park and garden and just chilled for a while until it was time to meet people for dinner. Dinner was great to catch up and see old friends, as well as meet some new people along the way.