A Day At The Louvre

We've been eating breakfast at a little bakery around the corner from our hotel every morning, but they decided to take this week off (it turns out today is a bank holiday and there are five of them in May).  So we decided to just wait until we got to the Louvre for our breakfast and more importantly our coffee!  It was a rainy day, so we hopped on the Metro at the station that's right across from the hotel and made it to the Louvre.  Turns out the Metro stop we had traveled before had come out on the street, but this one exited on the Carousel de Louvre.   There we found a place for breakfast and Susan discovered a new favorite pastry, the Canele d'Aquitaine.

A canelé is a small French pastry with a soft and tender custard center and a dark, thick caramelized crust. The dessert, which is in the shape of small, striated cylinder approximately two inches in height, is a specialty of the Bordeaux region of France but can often be found in Parisian patisseries as well. Made from egg, sugar, milk and flour flavored with run and vanilla, the custard batter is baked in a mold, giving the canelé a caramelized crust and custard-like inside.

They are good!!!  Just as good as the Macarons.

A macaron is a sweet meringue-based confection made with eggs, icing sugar, granulated sugard, ground almond and food coloring. It is also called Luxemburgleri. The macaron is commonly filled with ganache, buttercream, or jam filling sandwiched between two cookies.    So good!!

Then we went in the Louvre, and it was a madhouse as usual.  We took lots of pictures, but rather than trying to include them in the blog, I just loaded them up to my website (Dan's).  Go to France 2013 to see all of our pictures. The previous Thursday, we had tried to find the Egyptian area, but were unsuccessful.  This time I was determined and we found it at last.  

We spent quite a while there, then went to the cafeteria for lunch.  We didn't see anything we liked in the cafeteria, but there was a little stand selling baquette sandwiches and the like, so I got in line to get those while Susan went hunting for a table.  She had her eye on one where some people were getting ready to leave, when  they did she went to sit down and some jerk jumped in front of her and pushed her out of the way to take the table!  Oh well, she found another one that was even more convenient and was sitting there when I made it back with the food.

After lunch we went to see the section on Italian painters, including sections on medieval paintings that Susan really likes.  Then on to the Italian painters, including the Mona Lisa. You must view our photos to see the fantastic shot we got of the Mona Lisa.  

The last time I was in the Louvre, they had a line you got int that went directly in front of it where you got to see it up close for 15 seconds before they moved you along.  Now it was a free for all, so we didn't get within a hundred feet of it, but got a great shot of a sea of people in front of it with their cameras held above their heads taking random shots.

After that we wanted to go see the section on Flemish painters, but on the way ran into an area with a lot of very large outdoor French statues that were truly amazing.  There was a huge bronze called The Captives that was really incredible.

Still trying to make our way to the section on the Flemish painters, we wandered into an entire gallery with works by Michaelangelo.  We were half way through when the battery on the camera died, and the spare was in my pack that we had checked.  So we made our way back to coat check, got the spare battery and finally made our way to the Flemish painters.

By this time we were pretty tired so we decided to head back.  We made our way back to the mall, got a coffee (and Susan another Canele d'Aquitatine) and then headed to the Metro stop.  When we got there it was a zoo!  There was a mob of people in front of the single Metro entrance that took tickets, with people breaking in line, people getting stuck in the turnstile and general mayhem.  So finally someone got tired of it, and when someone came out the exit, they just held the door open and a sea of people (us included) just went in the exit.  After that it was easy, and shortly we were back in our room.

After a break, we found a place that was on Susan's list for dinner that we could get into and wasn't too far from a Metro stop (it's still raining).  When we got there it was a tiny little wine bar, with no English menu.  Luckily the waiter spoke English and read off the menu to use.  Susan had a monk fish and I had roast lamb, followed by a cream desert topped with strawberries.  Then back to the room for a much needed rest.