full-size image / buy print

After Notre Dame, I went back to the hostel, and slept like I’ve never slept before. I woke up completely refreshed at 8am the next day, and decided to go to the Louvre. It really is a fabulous place The 18th century buildings which house the exhibits contrast marvellously with I.M. Pei’s famous glass pyramid, under which you enter the museum. In fact, I found the building more impressive than most of the exhibits.

Still, I couldn’t just come here to look at the exterior, and so in I went. It’s eminently wanderable in there, with what seems like miles of corridors, absolutely crammed with pictures, statues, and objets d’art. Of course I saw the classics: the Mona Lisa, the Venus de Milo, and the Winged Victory of Samothrace. But of course the real gems are rarely what you expect them to be, and my favourite painting was a Veronese hanging in the same room as the Mona Lisa. It’s just a bunch of people falling, and I thought it was great. But really, most of the paintings didn’t do much for me, and I was much more impressed by the sculptures.

The Mona Lisa was OK, I suppose. Probably would have looked better if I’d got within 20 feet of it, but it’s very poorly hung. It’s set back inside a protective case, which means you can only see it from almost directly in front of it. The results is you get a column of people right across the room, all squinting and straining to see it.

I was quite impressed with the Venus de Milo, but it was the rooms full of giant Greek statues that I’d never heard of which really impressed me. It made me think, though – why all the fuss about the Elgin Marbles in the British Museum when there are Greek artefacts all over the world? Why shouldn’t Greek works be seen outside Greece?