{ oeuvre } d'art - Wanderlogue

Louvre : L’ouvre : L’oeuvre ? While the origin of the name of the most famous museum in the world is unclear, it is a pretty coincidence that resembles the word “ouvrer,” an ancient word that means to work, especially when referring to intricate and ornate work. The word “oeuvrer” stems from this ancient word and “oeuvre d’art” means “work of art”. The museum is as intricate and ornate a work of art as the works it houses.

WEEK 2: TAKING ADVANTAGE OF STUDENT FREE MUSEUM ADMISSION AND HAVING THE PERFECT NOT VERY TOURISTY WELCOMETO WEEKEND THREE.

One of my professors once said that seeing your favorite artwork is like visiting an old friend.

Strangely enough, that is a pretty accurate description of how I felt when I stepped into the room of French paintings and saw Jacques Louis David’s Oath of Horatii at the Louvre. The overwhelming wave of emotion that came over me was probably even more powerful because it was so unexpected. I guess that is how it feels to be starstruck, in the midst of legendary talent and glorious works.

Not to mention size. The Coronation of Napoleon, another of David’s masterpieces, is over 20 ft tall. Impossible to capture within my camera frame. (Notice the decline in quality of photography compared to Pompidou).

And not to mention architecture. The space that houses these works of art is a work of art in itself. Every painted ceiling, every carved staircase, every ornamented column. Breathtaking.

Ceiling of the oldest staircase in the building

Photo-worthy ceiling of yet another beautiful room in the palace…museum

Musée du Louvre is a place I have always dreamed about as soon as I knew of it’s existence. I created in my head an idea of the museum based on everything everyone has told me. But it was really nothing at all like what I imagined. For one, I thought the Louvre (based on its size) was situated in the outskirts of the city. Wrong, it is smack dab in the middle of la ville. Also, whenever I imagined the Mona Lisa (La Joconde, more on that later), I imagined it to be in the corner of a long narrow hall…whereas it is actually in the middle of a huge room with ropes to help reel people in.

Regardless of my expectations and the reality, Musée du Louvre is truly worth braving the crowds (and the line) for, as it definitely lives up to its reputation of being the best in the world. While on a more slow day I would prefer a smaller museum, or really anything but the Louvre, the Louvre is basically #obligatory.

My first Louvre experience was on the first day of arriving in Paris, when my host sister showed us around the area on a rainy but magical walk through the neighborhood where we saw everything from Palais Royal, Louvre, Opéra and Place Vendôme. Even through the rain, seeing the glass pyramid for the first time was enchanting. My first time venturing into the musée was on a guided tour with the program, Wednesday of week 2. My first instinct after I finished the tour was that I never wanted to set foot in that museum again…

…I ended up going back with another friend from the Global Studies Paris travel study program Friday that same week.

Musée du Louvre is crowded. It is big. It is difficult to navigate. But if you just grab a map and wander towards the Richelieu wing, I swear it is like you have private access to the museum. You will be able to breathe, take pictures, wander around without bumping into people, wander around without photobombing. It is as if you have gone to a different museum.

Most people who go to the Louvre just go see the most famous works and then head out. The guided tours just show you the biggest attractions before leaving. Hence why I hated the museum based on the tour, despite the fact that it showcases the world’s best collection of my favorite art period. But for those of us blessed to have the time, energy, and magical student pass to stay for longer and visit multiple times, it is well worth it to check out the thousands of artworks in the other levels and wings of the museum.

Basically, if you get through most of the Louvre, you will have covered Ancient through Neoclassical and Romantic art. Musée d’Orsay picks up from Neoclassical and goes through Impressionism and Post-impressionism after which Centre Pompidou covers everything afterwards (modern art). Basically in three museums and for the price of three tickets (or in our case as students, for the price of…free), you can basically walk through art history and see almost everything worth seeing, if not at least one work from every artist worth seeing. Even after that you can fill in some more gaps at smaller museums such as L’Orangerie (free for students) and Petit Palais (free for everyone always).

Louvre is by far the most popular museum in Paris, if not in the world. Every day, thousands of people pass through the Pyramid. The courtyard itself is worth visiting, and an awesome walk in the evening by the fountains with a view of the ferris wheel in Tuileries garden and of Musée d’Orsay and the Eiffel Tower. During the day, the area buzzes with activity, vendors selling souvenirs, and hundreds of tourists taking those embarrassing pictures that involve the subject standing on this box thing (probably made for this very purpose) and sticking his or her hand out so it looks like the hand is touching the tip of the pyramid…or something (the second-hand embarrassment gets me every time).

The first time we went, the program was a big enough group that we got to skip the line. After entering in through the pyramid, we were separated into two groups, French 3 and 4/5 were in one group with an English speaking tour guide, and French 100/107 were with a French speaking tour guide.

We were handed audio sets so that we could hear our guide in the crowded museum.

In the basement, with a model of the original fort

We started off in the basement, where we walked through the oldest part of the building, the remnants of the foundation of a fort, the original Louvre in the 12th century. Since then, the Louvre has expanded, served as a royal residence for several reigns, and was first opened as a museum (the Richelieu wing, at least) to the public by King Lous XIII during the French Revolution in 1793 before becoming what it is today, a part of President François Mitterrand’s Grand Louvre plan and eventually La pyrimide inversée in 1993.

After going through the history, we walked through the busiest part of the museum, including the Versailles-eqsue Apollo Gallery and the Victory of Samothrace, which happened to just get back the night before. Within about an hour and a half we saw basically almost every important work of art in the world.

And then of course there was the nightmare of La Joconde.

Actually, it wasn’t even that bad. I was rather unimpressed by the size of the crowd. I could get a semi decent view of the tiny painting without any contact with another human being.

As you may have guessed, La Joconde is what French people call the Mona Lisa. They call it this because the woman who is in the portrait was the wife of a man named Joconde, or Giocondo in Italian. Therefore, French and Italians have names that refer to that, though we had a lighthearted dinner table dispute on the validity of such a claim…

A perfect day for 20€

PART I: VERY FRENCH BREAKFAST 5€

As I mentioned earlier, I returned to the Louvre later that week while meeting up with a friend from the Global Studies program. We met up at Les Halles and walked over to the Paul on Montorguiel for breakfast before walking over to the Louvre.

PART II: LOUVRE 0€

The second trip to the museum, we entered using our student IDs. The line went all the way from the front of the pyramid to nearly the arch of Sully. There was a sign near the end that said it would be a 1 hour wait from that point. We were discouraged but got in line anyways. And good thing we did, because within half an hour we had gotten into the pyramid, waited in the ticket booth line (where we found out that we do not in fact need a ticket, we can just show our IDs and go), and gotten into the museum.

This time around, navigating was a little easier. Hint: there are (rather inconsistent) signs near the entrance of each room that point out what the room number is…which may or may not correspond to the maps in the hallways (that don’t really match up with the maps in the pamphlet). Nevertheless it isn’t too difficult figuring out where you are, and when it is time to go, just look for all of the “Sortie” signs with little pyramid icons.

[fsg_gallery id=”1″]

[fsg_gallery id=”2″]

One area really worth checking out is Napoleon III Apartments in the first floor of the Richelieu wing. Walking through those rooms was like walking through Fontainebleau or a smaller version of Versailles, full of luxurious chandeliers and ornate furniture. Most tourists stick to the Denon Wing so it is also not crowded at all, with plenty of air (whereas in some of the rooms back in the busy section I found it a bit difficult to breathe…).

[fsg_gallery id=”3″]

The windows of the Louvre are like frames enclosing the picturesque town outside.

PART III: Ramen 11€, Boba 4€

Rue Sainte-Anne: The Sawtelle of Paris (really.)

After a couple hours, I ran to class and then came back to meet up with my friend at the Palais Royal, Musée du Louvre métro. The key to meeting up with people while having no form of communication is to define a specific place and time and to never be late. After miraculously meeting up, we headed over to Rue Sainte-Anne to fulfill our ramen craving.

Leave it up to a bunch of UCLA students to strike gold in the closest thing to Sawtelle as it gets in Paris! Rue Sainte-Anne and other nearby roads (including Rue des Petits Champs and Rue Chabanais) is like the unofficial Little Tokyo part of Paris. It is located conveniently (for me) down one of the six streets that branch from Place des Victories, and is basically the area between Palais Royal and Opéra. The closest métro stations are probably Quatre-Septembre (line 3), Pyramides (line 7, 14) and Bourse (line 3). There are dozens of Japanese restaurants, mostly for sushi and ramen, some Korean restaurants, a couple Thai and pho restaurants (not entirely sure why theses are always packaged together here), and a few Taiwanese restaurants (and boba stores as well!).

The food in general is really fairly priced. You can get a filling bowl of ramen for around 7€ and a bento box with boba will set you back around 12€. The boba, however, is disgustingly expensive. At 4,50 to 5,50€ for sizes that are smaller than those in the US, I will never complain of Coco’s prices ever again (double the price of boba in America, 6 times the price of an extra large boba in Taiwan). Anyways, enough on my irrelevant rant on boba (well, boba is always relevant for UCLA, but back to Paris).

So in this Rue Sainte-Anne area, there are a bunch of Asian cuisine restaurants, and a ramen place that is the only sit-down eatery in Paris where I have seen people line up for food. It reminds me of home, Los Angeles, the land of hipster foodies. Because no matter how much French people care about food, most cafés on any given street meet a certain standard and there are only a few stand out places (and believe me you will pay for that!) that Parisians can basically sit down at any random café and be able to order the same thing for around the same price. But apparently there do exist some hipster Parisians willing to wait in line for ramen at a tiny store on Rue des Petits Champs.

We walked through the Palais Royal to get to the area and after walking around a bit, discovering a couple Taiwanese restaurants and a Korean mart, we were able to snag a seat in said restaurant sans line! 11€ was pricey compared to other ramen places (yet cheaper than a croque monsieur at any other café, sadly), but well worth it!

After weeks of baguette, a warm bowl of ramen on a rainy day satisfied every craving perfectly

Note: the names on the menus basically mean nothing. “Soja” means soy sauce, but in this case it was more of a Tonkatsu kind of base…translations are pretty bad in general, especially when wontons, gyoza, and every other type of dumpling are called “ravioli,” that gives you an idea of how hit and miss the menus are. At least at the Taiwanese restaurants I could read the Chinese menu!

PART IV: City view: priceless.

The end of a perfect day: Montmartre yet again

After dinner, we had to walk off the giant bowl of ramen…and the boba we ordered afterwards. We walked towards Opéra and Galleries Lafayette. On the way, a young blonde and well-dressed French woman actually stopped us to ask (in a lightly accented English) where we got the bubble tea. It kind of made my day.

Then just because we could, we decided to go up to Montmartre…so we boarded the métro and it was off to Abbesses once again!

The best thing about eating dinner early at like 6 is that we still had hours of daylight left to go, and plenty of time to enjoy this view with live music in the background.

There are at least two lock bridges by the Seine near Notre Dame…and apparently a lock fence off to the west side of Sacre Coeur near a pretty view of the Tour Eiffel.

I finally realize why Monet had to paint the same building in every light. The Sacre Coeur is mesmerizing as the light fades from daylight to sunset to dusk.