6 July - The Louvre By Holly and ElodieHello - Today we had a wonderful day at the Louvre museum . It is made up of three rooms, the Denon, Sully and Richelieu. The Louvre has lots of famous paintings and statues. It has paintings like the Mona Lisa, The Raft of Medusa and The Coronation of Napoleon 1. It has a few statues including St Mary Magdalene, the Statue of the Lion and the Venus de Milo. The paintings and statues are by famous artists like Leonardo De Vinci, Michelangelo, Botticelli and Raphael. We saw pretty much everything.
The Louvre used to be a palace but the audio guide that we hired tells us that it was a fortress. Firstly we headed into the big central glass Pyramid to get to the entrance of the Louvre - the entrance to the Louvre is underground.
They say that the Holy Grail that Jesus drank out of, in the Last Supper, is buried right underneath the point of the pyramid.
We went to get tickets and then got a 3DS audio guide for 3 euros each. We set off to find our first thing. The first thing we found was the Egyptian artifacts located in Sully. Some of the artifacts in there were more than 4000 years old like the hippopotamus. The hippopotamus represented the evil and the dangers of the swamp of Delta which the deceased had to cross.
We moved on to see the Mona Lisa so we all typed it onto our map and our audio guide said 'I will show you the way to your selected painting'. On the way to the Mona Lisa we looked at some statues of people (some that were naked) and we saw lots of statues of girls and boys. Most of the statues that say BC (Before Christ) have no clothes because it was very famous to sculpture people that were naked back then.
We were walking down the aisle where paintings were hung up on the sides and we saw the Mona Lisa through an archway. We were very excited. We walked into the room that the Mona Lisa was in (it was in the Denon) and we saw a big crowd around the painting. It turned out to be a small painting to Elodie and I because we thought it was going to be much bigger. It was about 1 metre by 0.75 metres. Elodie and I pushed our way to the front of the crowd but no one seemed to care. We got to the front and got some photos (no flash) taken next to the Mona Lisa, when we were at the front we listened to the information about it on our 3DS guide. We found out that it was painted for either the birth of a new son or to celebrate moving into a new house. It's background is of a lofty(tall) horizon which opens onto a landscape where water, earth and air merge together. The Mona Lisa was stolen in 1911 then found, and vandalised in 1956. Since then they took care of her like crazy.
We quickly went to see the Coronation of Napoleon 1. It was painted by Jacques-Louis David. It took him 2 years to complete it. Two hundred dignitaries, some of whom are recognisable, are present as Napoleon gets ready to place the crown on Josephine's head. Then we popped over to the Raft of Medusa since it was just 1 minute away. In 1816, a French frigate ran aground off Senegal. The officers built a makeshift raft which would soon become packed with 150 castaways. After 12 long days at sea with only wine and biscuits to survive 15 returned home.
After that we crossed the road to our apartment since it was just across the road. We had lunch and had a twix ice-cream (Yum!!). We were only home for about 45mins and then we crossed the road (again) back to the Louvre. We checked out the "carousel" area under the Louvre and found a massive food court. Then we went into the Louvre again.
Erin wanted to see St Mary Magdalene which was in the Denon so we went to look at it. It is possible that she originally hung from the vault of a church and was surrounded by angels. According to legend, while she withdrew naked to a grotto in order to repent, angels transported her to heaven everyday so she could hear music the angels played. We went to see the Statue of the Lion. The Statue of the Lion is 4000 years old (2000 BC); it was found in an ancient town called Milas. It had an identical twin on the other side of the arch which was the entrance to a temple said to be for the "king of the land". Its twin is now in a museum in Syria.
After that we went to check out Napoleon III's Apartment 1856-1861. The grand bedroom of Napoleons was part of a magnificent suite of reception rooms. Marble, paintings, an abundance of gold, sculptural décor, damask hangings, gilt wooden chairs, massive chandeliers and candelabras all contributed to the stately, majestic effect of the decorative style of the Second Empire, very few reminders of which have been preserved. Elodie thought the chandeliers looked very pretty and Holly thought that the red lounges and chairs looked cute. 
We looked at a few Egyptian antiques that were tall around 1300 years BC.
We went back home and dad was there so we sat with him and watched the end of the tour de France stage 6 on TV (all in French). Dad was at the Tour de France stage start that day so dad did not go to the Louvre with us in the day. So after dinner Holly took Dad to the Louvre to see some of the exhibits including the Mona Lisa and Napoleon 111's Apartment. Dad said his favourite thing in Napoleon's room was the stuffed rabbits (ha ha!). He also liked the sculpture garden. My favourite part of the day was seeing all the things in the apartment and Elodie's was seeing the Raft of Medusa.
We had a lovely day at the Louvre and hope you feel the same about our blog post.
From Holly and Elodie
Wow, what a great time you had in la Louvre - there are some magnificent works of art there - and when you think how old they are, those painters and sculptors were so clever and talented, for those works of art to be as colourful and intact as they are now is just breathtaking...you can see why security is high. How awful that some twit vandalised the Mona Lisa..imagine is no-one was able to see it now...how sad would that be. Very interesting about the Holy Grail....the things you learn!! And, as you say, an awful lot of nakedness in those days!!! xxxx
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