Day in the Louvre

May 3-5

Wednesday was a day of rain. It is also one of the days with extended museum hours, so it was a perfect day for the Louvre.

We were going mainly to visit painting galleries, but first we had to check on a couple of details we had missed before. 

The Venus de Milo is carved from two blocks of marble joined somewhere around the figure’s waist. I guessed the pieces were joined where the drape ends and the smooth torso begins.

Joanna said she expected to find the seam in the drapery. 

We walked around the statue until we came to the figure’s right side. There it was, as Joanna predicted, in the folds of the falling robe.

After our last visit, Joanna had read that the Winged Victory’s hand was in a glass case near the statue. Now that we knew to look for it, Joanna spotted it right away.

Different parts—the palm, the ring finger, and thumb—were recovered by different expeditions in the 20th century. According to Rick Steeves, Greece agreed to give the French the finger, and the rest of the hand too.

We made our way to the Northern European painting galleries. There were several by Rembrandt, Van Dyck, Cuyp. The Dutch masters are my favorites. The Vermeers had been moved to the special exhibit on genre painting that we saw a week earlier. 

There were several rooms of French paintings. Some had wall-size studies for tapestries, including a series on Alexander.

The room devoted to Ingres looked at his bather in a turban. Like Rodin’s reuse of certain figures, Ingres used the image again and again. 

It began as a study to show patrons his progress in drawing and painting. That canvas shows the bather alone seated on a platform of some kind. 

The same figure in the same pose shows up in Ingres’ harem scene called the Turkish Bath. She is the nude highlighted in the foreground holding a lute. There is a third painting where the identical nude shows up as one of a group.

There were lots of bathers throughout these galleries, especially Bathsheba (“Your faith was strong, but you needed proof. You saw her bathing on the roof.”) and Suzanna, from a chapter of Daniel that is part of the Old Testament apocrypha.

Somewhere along the way we passed the torso of a man that may have been mounted on something with a rod or dowel now gone. But the hole for it remains. It is a guy with two assholes

We wandered in the Louvre till 9.

Tabac de la Sorbonne, one of the restaurants near the hotel, was already closing when we showed up for dinner around 9:30. The boss said they expected a slow night because they were competing with a televised political debate between Macron and Le Pen, and a soccer match.

We ordered a basic, chicken and fries.

The cook had left by the time we finished it, so the boss made us a green salad.

I polished off three 25 centiliter glasses of Bordeaux before I realized that 75 cl is a full bottle. So I was ready to crash.

Thursday we took bus No. 63 to Musee d’Orsay (the stop called Solferino) and walked half a block to get the No. 73, which goes up the Champs Elysees to the Arc de Triomphe and beyond.

The bus had a recorded voice announcing the stops. It taught me how to say “Champs Elysees.” I can’t make all the sounds right, but learned that the stress in “Elysees” (as it is in “Elysium”) is on the second syllable. I had been putting it on the first.

It was still fairly crowded, but nowhere near the congestion we saw before. You have to buy a ticket if you want to go to the top of the monument, but the very moving sights—a memorial to the Resistance, the text of de Gaulle’s radio address announcing the formation of a government in exile, and the Tomb of the Unknown are freely open to the public.

Wind and rain began when we were there, so we had to duck for cover in one of the side vaults of the arch. The wind was blowing the rain through the main arch.

After the rain let up, we stopped at a cafe. I ordered espresso and Campari with soda. The waiter said he didn’t have that and suggested a mix of Aperol, Prosecco and something else. it was a very weak imitation.

We had stopped at a restaurant called Madeleine 7 for a drink and a map check a few days earlier. The place looked charming, old and dark with lots of wood and brass. So we decided to try it for dinner.

It was easy enough to find because it stands at 7 Blvd. de la Madeleine, which is named for an active landmark church dedicated to Mary Magdalene. When we stopped in there, the altar surprised Joanna. 

It is dominated by a large baroque altarpiece that shows, not Jesus or the Virgin Mary, but Mary Magdalene being lifted by angels.

Madeleine 7’s menu includes a Caprese salad made with buffalo mozzarella, so we had that to start. We also had poulet frites. It looked more like turkey. The chicken leg was that big.

Joanna was tired by the time we got back to the Three Colleges. So I went down to Tabac for a nightcap around 10. They were already piling the chairs on the tables.

We were out early on Friday—early for us, anyway, a little after 10. We took the No. 82 bus to Rue Cler. 

Joanna had seen a shoe store specializing in Mephisto there. They are known as very good walking shoes and she wanted something a little dressier than the shoes she already has.

She usually takes a size 6, but the Mephistos were running a little large. The two guys who work there kept bringing her shoes, but most didn’t fit and others didn’t quite look right. 

She finally found a pair of black shoes in 5 1/2.

She had to go through seven or eight pairs before she hit the right ones.

That was quick compared to our search for moules frites, steamed mussels with French fries. We looked at I don’t know how many menus. We asked waiters, too. No luck. 

Went to a bistrot, Le Champ de Mars, named for the park by the Eiffel tower, which isn’t far away.

Joanna had a great onion soup. I was feeling very French and had Camembert with baguette and a glass of Sancerre.

We rode the bus back to Ile de la Cite and Notre Dame. We had gone there for an Easter service but had not toured the place yet on this trip.

There was a service ending this time, too. We sat down to watch the last few minutes of it.

It was a little different. The communion altar had two reliquaries and a cross surmounted by a golden crown of thorns and a drape representing Jesus’ cloak.

At the end, all the celebrants marched out and half the congregation followed them toward the back of the church, behind the sanctuary.

In addition to several priests, there were lay members of some kind of religious order taking part in the ceremonies. 

The cathedral houses a reliquary for the Crown of Thorns. It was formerly kept at Saint Chappelle, near Notre Dame, but was removed to the cathedral. Joanna had read that it is shown on good Friday and on the first Friday of each month.

The Fifth was the first Friday in May, so Joanna guessed that we had seen part of the service for the unveiling of the crown.

We viewed side chapels and carvings behind the sanctuary that depict episodes from the Gospels—on one side, events after the Resurrection, and on the other, events in Jesus’ life. 

The Chapel of the Crown of Thorns is directly behind the sanctuary and the reliquary was on display with a faint red light inside. 

That may have been the destination of the procession.

As we came back to the nave, we heard a high pure voice singing. It was the start of a choir concert. The singers were all young people, who may have been students at a music school.

We stayed for that, but then I asked Joanna if she wanted to leave. They were setting up for Vespers, and I had had enough church for one day. 

We finally got our moules frites, at a cafe called La Gueuze on Rue Sufflot, a couple of blocks from the Pantheon. It advertises moules frites on its awning.

It was noisy and crowded with students. And it had a very good beer selection. I stayed with wine, though. I had an OK Burgundy, a little light and followed that with an excellent Cotes du Rhone Villages, which was cheaper and had more flavor, including a longer lasting finish.

We were sitting next to a glass front case displaying various beers. One was Gouden Carolus, with drawing of the emperor on his horse. Wow, a beer named for Charlemagne. Had to have that. One couldn’t hurt.

And it didn’t. There were a couple of Carolus beers, so I had a bottle of brown ale. Very malty, almost a hint of chocolate flavor, but bitter enough to be good.

Mussels come in a big pot, but they are mostly shell and air. So after splitting that, we were still hungry.

Smoke was coming in through the open door. People are allowed to smoke at the outdoor tables in Paris. 

So we moved up the street to La Creperie, one of our go-to breakfast stops. We shared a couple of crepes and we (mostly I) went through lots of Bordeaux. I find only two kinds of wine in this country: good wine and better wine. This one was solidly good.

Joanna as usual got the best photos of the day, both taken on Wednesday at the Louvre. 

Two are too good to miss, so I’m attaching both. One shows Victory’s hand, and the other, taken through an upper window of the Louvre during the drizzle of rain.

Be well, all, and exercise those mussels.

Harry

At first sight, I thought this was some kind of Apple franchise unique to France. But no, they sell real apples.