Paris Day Three: The Louvre and Chartier

Yes, the weather was that grey today!

*WARNING: THIS POST CONTAINS PARTIAL NUDITY* 

Musée du Louvre is one of the world's largest museums and the most visited art museum in the world. Today, it was certainly a crazily busy day with streams of tourists (mostly Chinese it seemed). 

The negatives:

• The Louvre is absolutely ginormous and is pretty much a giant maze. We did manage to navigate ourselves round, but it was certainly a trek, as my legs got so tired - far more tiring than climbing the Eiffel Tower! 
• The crowds in front of the Mona Lisa were ridiculous! Everyone was pushing and shoving to get a snap of the famous painting. There was a total of 6 "body"-guards in front of the painting and they were very vigilant with anyone who would act out of order.

• We went to the Galeries Lafayette, which I thought was pretty boring. It was the same as every other big department store regardless of whatever city in the world you are. The ceiling was quite cool though. Afterwards, we went to H&M (again, but a different one), but yet again, I didn't manage to find anything I fancied. 

The positives: 

• I'm not really an appreciator of fine arts, but there were some cool paintings, statues, ornaments, furniture etc and I did enjoy the museum, despite what my feet were telling my brain.

Tehehe

Venus de Milo

The metro station...

• Yesterday, by chance, we stumbled across this really busy restaurant with a queue to get in that went around the corner of the street. Luckily there was no queue today, so we decided to go inside for a meal. We were pleasantly surprised as our meal was delicious (One steak, lamb and sea bream). Turns out Boullion Chartier used to be a soup kitchen or broullion over 100 years ago, but now is a restaurant that is popular amoung both native Parisians and tourists. Lots of the original decor has been retained - there are lots of little draws where regulars used to store their napkins and there were also racks on top of your head to put your coat and bags. Service is very speedy and the entire restaurant was packed to the point of having to share tables with others. My favourite aspect of the restaurant though, was that they would scribble the bill onto the paper table cloth, and work it out using some speedy mental arithmetic - a nice personal touch to a fantastic meal. 

That was my day today, how was yours?

Bye!

Rebecca x