That's some old stuff,,,

Venus di Milo
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Today we decided to brave the queues at the Louvre. We were planning to go the day before but found that the Louvre is closed on Tuesdays! We walked there and arrived at 9:30am and only had a small queue to go through security, and then again to buy our tickets. Another queue to get into the actual exhibit area, then it was on for one and all in the race to see the Mona Lisa. We found that we had got there at a good time as it only took a few minutes to get to the front of the pack and get a close up view of the beguiling smile. Not sure what all the fuss is about. The most amusing thing was the museum staff stating.. "No Photo...No Photo" - but people still did it. I am sure there will be some photos with wagging fingers in them!!

People waiting to get into the Louvre
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One thing that really amazed us were the colours that the painters in the centuries past were able to use and that they are still as vibrant today. There were also people in the museum actually painting and drawing - copying from the displayed works of art.

This Louvre place is amazing...

Next Joe and I went off to see the Venus de Milo. She was a beauty and not as popular as the Mona. There were so many things to look at it was hard to know which direction to turn. We walked through the Egyption Artifacts area and saw some amazing things.

Egyption Exhibit
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Lastly we decided to go into the Apollo display to view King Louis XIV crown jewels. Once again to peels of "No Photos.. No Photos." we witnessed the most amazing room we had ever seen, let alone the jewels. So much guilded gold and paintings and relief sculptures on the roof - it really makes you wonder how they managed to get that stuff up there.

After walking around for four hours we decided to get some lunch and wondered outside. It was so cold today - at high of 9 degrees with a "feels like" temperature of 4 degrees. A bit cold for us Brisbane people. We are all looking forward to our time in Rome where it will hopefully be a bit warmer.

Venus di Milo
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We wandered back to the hotel room and decided to have a bit of a kip. It is tiring work walking around looking at exhibits. After our rest, Joe and I went out and ate dinner at a the "Cafe Royale". Joe asked for the grilled Sole and got the whole fish - and had an interesting time with his first attempt at using the fish cutlery and deboning the fish. It was nearly 10pm when we got home so decided to turn in for the evening...