Sacre Coeur et le Louvre

I am trying to squeeze as much into mom’s short time in Paris as possible, which may not end up being the best thing for her back…but so far she’s being a trooper and pushing through. This morning, we left fairly early for Sacre Coeur. When we got there it was very pleasantly uncrowded. There was virtually no one else on the stairs, except of course for the annoying dudes who try to tie pieces of string on your arm and then make you pay for them. One of them reached for me and actually grabbed my wrist. I whipped my arm around and told him, “Je ne m’interesse pas!” firmly and in my best French accent. Ugh.

The inside of the church was just gorgeous, but you aren’t supposed to take pictures, so I was a good girl and didn’t. You also aren’t allowed to talk, and I think that I said this the first time that I visited Sacre Coeur, but I almost like it better than Notre Dame because you aren’t allowed to take pictures or talk. It makes it so much less touristy and much more like a church. And I learned that Sacre Coeur is actually a fairly recent addition to the Parisian skyline. Its cornerstone wasn’t laid until 1875, which is very modern compared to Notre Dame! Still, it is a beautiful work of art both inside and out. The ceiling is done in a very intricate mosaic, and the stained glass windows are stunning.

After touring the inside of the church, we walked around for a little bit in the neighborhood. Mom got a gift for a friend in a little gift shop, and then we wandered around the famous square with all of the artists. Then, we went back to Sacre Coeur and went down into the crypt. It was really cool down there, especially since I hadn’t been down there the first time I came to Sacre Coeur. There were displays of communion cups, priest habits, etc. both old and new. There were also statues of saints with places for you to pray to them and/or burn candles, but interestingly, there were two new statues of what I assume were two new saints. The statue labels said that they were made in 2005. There was also a cool monument to all the members of the clergy who gave their lives in World War II.

Then, we walked all the way back down the steps, which were much more crowded at this point, where yet another dude tried to tie a string on my wrist. I must just have “gullible” written on my face. Ugh again. We hopped back on the metro and rode it all the way to the Louvre. I have to say that I love how the metro literally pops up right in the basement of the museum. Mom and I went to lunch at the international food court down in the basement. We ended up choosing an Italian place because mom wasn’t that hungry, and their prix-fixe menu was hearty/sufficient enough where we could easily share it and both of us be full. I ended up being very helpful to the American couple behind us in line who spoke absolutely no French. I translated the whole menu for them, explained how the formules work and what you could pick with each one. I felt very helpful lol. I was also surprised that (a) they had come to France without even a small dictionary to help them and that (b) the menus had no translations into other languages even though they were located in one of the most visited museums in the world. Oh well. Mom and I enjoyed a terribly unhealthy, very un-French lunch of pizza, Coke, and chocolate ice cream before heading to the main entrance of the Louvre.

Mom decided that she wanted to see the Greek and Roman antiquities, which was great for me, because I’ve been to Louvre twice before, but I’ve never seen that exhibit. It turned out to be really fascinating. We both enjoyed looking at all of the intricately done statues in bronze, marble, and limestone. We also, of course, went to see the Winged Victory of Samothrace, which was beautiful. I also very sadly learned that part of it is a reconstruction from the 1800s. Darn. I had always thought that it was all original. We also managed to accidentally stumble upon the Venus de Milo, which I’m not sure why she’s so famous… There seemed to be many other more exquisitely done, more complete statues in the Greek and Roman exhibit than her, but hey, she was still pretty cool, even though she was armless.

Mom and I also saw the pre-classical Greek sculptures, which I really found fascinating, and they oddly seemed to resemble the heads on the Galapagos Islands. We wandered through the Italian painting exhibit at a fairly fast clip on our way to see the Mona Lisa (La Joconde in French). The poor woman…she was being mobbed on all sides by tacky tourists, completely unaware of anything about her other than the fact that she was famous. She is protected by intensely thick glass and is behind a rope, which is definitely a good thing because people were taking flash photos left and right even though the signs very explicitly say not to.

On our way out of the Louvre, mom got a cool glass vase that looked just like one that she had admired in one of the Greek exhibits and had teased about stealing. We hopped the metro back to our hotel, and on the way we stopped at a pharmacy where I had to reach back into my memory from high school French to be able to describe mom’s symptoms and ask the pharmacist to recommend something. Apparently, I was clear enough, because he was able to recommend two different things – a topical form of ibuprofen that’s illegal in the U.S. (shhhhhhh) and a pill, both of which are anti-inflammatory and painkillers. We also stopped at a French Starbucks! It was the nicest, largest Starbucks I had ever seen. It looked as though they had converted an old hotel lobby into the seating area, so the 19th century ceiling decorations, chandeliers, and mirrors were still there. Then we went back to the hotel where I took a massive nap while mom played around on the computer. We left for dinner a little earlier than normal so that we could go to the Galeries Lafayette, which is just down the street from us, because mom has been searching for a new handbag the whole time we’ve been here; plus she wanted to get something for Emily. We were successful on both counts! Mom found a really pretty new red handbag, and we got Emily a present (and no, I’m not going to say what it is in case Emily reads this…). The store itself was really cool inside. The center of the store had this massive dome, and there was painted relief work on all the floors. Next, we headed to dinner. I introduced mom to the wonders of Brioche Dorée for dinner where we both had sandwiches, dessert, drinks, and tea. Yum! Hopefully mom’s back feels better tomorrow…it needs to because we’re going to the impressionist museum (the Musée d’Orsay), and she’s been looking forward to this the whole time.