Scroll down for the photos if my ramblings are of no interest to you.
 
I have been dreaming of going to the Louvre since I was five years old, and now I have been there three times. It is open evenings on Wednesday and Friday, and I took advantage of both, as well as of a Sunday afternoon.
 
The pyramid is such a wise use of space and shape and air for the difficult purpose of funneling the throngs into the innards. And it leaves the square open for sitting around.
 
A few vignettes of my fellows guests:
 
My Spanish is rudimentary but I tagged along with a group of Spanish tourists because their guide, an elegant young woman, spoke such remarkable Castillian Spanish. One raarely hears it in America, but it has a European elegance to it that was very alluring. This was in the Apollo room, the only place in any museum where they actually enforced their stated photography rules.
 
The ludicrous site of middle aged Japanese or Korean men (hard to figure which) brusquing into a gallery at the Louvre, pointing their camcorders at the first object and then sweeping the room at the speed of a fast march to get a split second of each piece before marching off to the next galley. No quiet contemplation here.
 
One could be cranky about the hordes of polyglot youth, often spending more time cooing than viewing. But here they are in a museum, and the mere association is something that might last. I liked them all about. Considerably slimmer than their ever exanding American counterparts who might not have quite their patience for meandering around this vast storehouse of human life gone by.
 
White statues are hard to shoot ... the little Elph has trouble with focus. I did my best.
 
As to what I looked at ... see below.
 
Click on any photo to to start the slide show.
 
© 2007, Stephen Arod Shirreffs. Take any photos you like. If you want to use them for fun, give me credit (Stephen Arod Shirreffs).
Permission is not granted for any religious, commercial, or political purpose. If you want to use any photos for commercial or political purposes, send me email to foto at gunung dot com.
Paris, September 2006
The Louvre
Pavilion Sully
Inside the Pyramid
Looking Up
Le Cour Carée
Le Cour Carée
Sargon
Servants (Servieurs placés derrière le trône royal)
Lion’s Head
Faune endormi
(Edme Bouchardon, 1726-30)
Ebih-Il, l’intendant
ca 2400 B.C.E, temple of Ishtar
5th century B.C.E.
Augustus
after his death, 41-54 C.E.
Preparation for a sacrifice, Rome
1st quarter of the 2nd century C.E.
Le Supplice de Marsyas
1st-2nd century C.E.
The Centaur and Love, Rome, 2nd-1st c. B.C.E.
Man’s Head, Egyptian, undated
Athens, ca 490-480, B.C.E.
Lion from the temple of Inshushinak, ca 14th c. B.C.E.
good night
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Looking Up



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Structure



Street Art



Stone



Night



Musée d’Orsay



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