Spend at least half a day here--it's worth it.
Written: Mar 30 '00
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Pros: the art! the art! the art! and oh yeah--the palace is pretty stunning, if you go for that sort of thing. ;-)
Cons: naturally, it's pretty crowded, and likely to be at any time
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| BettyKat's Full Review: Musée du Louvre |
I've only been to the Louvre once, but it prompted me to write (on my web site) that it had changed my life. It was during my first trip to Paris (which was during my first trip to Europe), and my friends in Belgium took me to Paris for the weekend. As you can imagine, we didn't have much time to see much of anything, but we did go to the Louvre, and spent almost half a day there. This was 3 years ago.
Well, it was everything it was cracked up to be. It was pretty crowded, even though it was winter (I'm sure it's worse when the weather's warm) and, as most of you know, it is huge. In fact, the Louvre sells (or did at that time) a year-long pass because you can go every day and not see the whole thing. I won't talk about the history of it too much, primarily because my knowledge is limited (I know it used to be a palace for French royalty, but that's about it), but also because, to me, this isn't what touched me. It was the art!
Like most Americans, I learned absolutely nothing about art--not even in college, where I majored in English. I don't even consider myself an "art buff," primarily because without knowledge and understanding, I don't "get" a lot of art. Many of the more famous art and artists (e.g., Picasso) don't appeal to me, and I rarely find myself moved by artwork, as I might be by, say, a book, a story or a movie.
This changed for me in the Louvre. Whether it was the headiness of my first visit to Paris, I can't say, but I traipsed through enough sections in the museum to see a wide variety of art, and was really stunned by it. A lot of what I saw was religious Italian art from the 16th and 17th centuries, which does not particularly appeal to me (we just ended up spending a good deal of time in that section) as a non-religious person, but I was truly astounded at the quality of all the art I saw, at the talent on display, and the general atmosphere in the Louvre. I also saw a particular time period of French paintings (the period escapes me now). I did, of course, cursorily check out the Mona Lisa (what's the big attraction here?) and the Venus de Milo. And again, the size of the place is astounding--those of us used to American museums, even large ones (like the Philadelphia Museum of Art, for example) really cannot comprehend a museum that would take a full 365 days to explore.
I recommend the Louvre for anyone--and I mean, anyone. You don't have to be an "art lover"; just keep an open mind and see if anything appeals to you. I do recommend scoping out the map of the place after you buy your tickets, because of course you won't have time to see the whole palace, and so you'll need to pick the top two sections which appeal to you (I say two sections because you won't really have time to see much more than that in half a day). If I lived in Paris, I would buy the one-year pass--and may still, if ever I move there.
Recommended:
Yes
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Epinions.com ID:
BettyKat
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Member: Katherine DePasquale
Location: New York, NY
Reviews written: 60
Trusted by: 17 members
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