So, in case you didn't know, the Mona Lisa is small. Way too small for a painting that you must remain fifteen feet away from and is covered in a thick layer of bullet proof glass. You can't see any of the paint detail, and you might as well just look at it in a book. My two cents.
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| This is what the Mona Lisa really looks like. |
If you only go to the Louvre to see the Mona Lisa you are a fool and will be disappointed. Luckily, the Louvre is huge (we were there for almost four hours and didn't even come close to seeing everything). Yeah, there's the Venus de Milo, which is much larger than I thought it would be, and a bunch of other famous works of art. But my favorite part of the Louvre were the apartments of Napoleon III.
Everyone who's been to Paris has talked to me about the Louvre, but no one seems to have seen these apartments. I guess I'm one of the lucky few. The Louvre used to be a palace. A few of the rooms were left with their original furnishings, the apartments of Napoleon III. If you go to the Louvre, these are a MUST SEE. Oh my. Okay, we'd been to Versailles. I thought that was opulence at its finest. But, no. Napoleon's apartments are trimmed with gold, dripping with enormous chandeliers, and filled with plush furniture.
It looked like a movie set.
This is what I always dreamed a palace would look like, and my fantasies were confirmed.
Took the subway to the Latin Quarter and ate lunch at Les Racines, 22 Rue Monsieur Le Prince. We started out with chicken liver terrine, which had great texture and wasn't too livery.
Hubs and I both had Duck L'Orange. I mean, we're in Paris! The duck was so moist and tender, falling off the bone, and the sauce wasn't too sweet, perfect.
Shared a delicious creme caramel (French flan) for dessert.
This place was a great deal, family run. The owners were very friendly. Highly recommended.
1 Entree + 2 Plats +1 Dessert + 2 glasses of wine = 33 Euros
We walked around a more upscale part of the Latin Quarter for awhile. I had the best croissant of my life at Gerard Mulot. It was so buttery it tasted cheesy. I don't know how that's possible.
We shared four macaroons from Pierre Herme. My favorite was the violet one. These are the only macaroons I've ever liked, and I've traipsed down to the fancy macaroon shop in Beverly Hills. They don't compare to Pierre's.
Window shopping, I found my jewelry souvenir. I bought a beautiful necklace at Metal Pointu's. They have modern, slightly-tough-but-still-elegant pieces.
Then over to Isle Saint Louis for more snacking. I was set on trying Berthillon ice cream, since I read everywhere during my research that it was the best ice cream in Paris. I had salted caramel.
Hubs had coffee. One scoop wasn't enough.
Was it better than Mashti Malone's? Nah.
Along the river a bride and groom were having photos taken. Brought back some fond wedding memories.
After munching all afternoon, we knew we needed to eat dinner at some point, but we weren't hungry, so we stopped at a fromagerie and picked up some cheese to take home. We picked 2 soft cow's milk cheeses and 1 hard goat cheese. 3 cheeses + a baguette = 13 Euros.
Perfect dinner for our last night in Paris.
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