Paris. By bus to the Île St Louis and the Louvre

The rue de Rivoli from the Louvre

A nice day and Virginia was planning on looking for some books in the area around the University so we decided to go to the Île St Louis by bus and walk from there. It was a new route for us and the bus took us through many of the older and narrower streets of Paris. The Île Saint-Louis is one of two natural islands in the Seine river(the other natural island is Île de la Cité).

The island is connected to the rest of Paris by bridges to both banks of the river and by the Pont Saint Louis to the Île de la Cité. The Île St Louis is a peaceful oasis in the busy Paris centre. The island has only narrow one-way streets, no métro stations and two bus stops. Most of it is residential, but there are several restaurants, shops, cafés and ice cream parlours at street level, as well as one large church, Saint-Louis-en-l'Île Church. A very elegant place to take up residence - if only one can afford it.

A narrow street in the Île St Louis

A flower shop on the Île St Louis

After a stroll around the Île we made our way to the Boulevard Saint-Michel.This is the centre of the student Quarter, it has long been a hotbed of academic life and activism, but tourism is also a major commercial focus of the street and designer shops have gradually replaced many small bookshops. The northern part of the boulevard is now the most frequented, due to its bookstores (such as Gibert Joseph and the Gibert Jeune), cafés, cinema and clothes shops.

We walked along the banks of the river and enjoyed the scenery and the bookstalls which were open for business along the Seine.

Bookstalls along the river

Virginia went on to do some book browsing and I headed for the Louvre. This is one of the world's largest museums, the most visited art museum anywhere and a historic monument. A central landmark of Paris, it is located on the Right Bank of the Seine in the 1st arrondissement. Nearly 35,000 objects from prehistory to the 19th century are exhibited over an area of 60,600 square metres (652,300 square feet). It is far too big to explore in a day or even a year.

Just consider, for example, the length of the Grand Gallery! Over one-half a kilometre of Italian painting and sculpture.

The Grand Gallery

Today I went to look primarily at French and Spanish paintings with, of course, an occasional sidetrip to view the statuary.  There are, of course, the "icons" at the Louvre that one must not miss.  The first of these is the Mona Lisa.  This is always disappointing since it is behind several layers of glass and there are so many people vying to see her that it is almost impossible to get a clear view.  Lots of people try to take pictures so I decided it would be more interesting to take a picture of the people trying to take pictures.

Mona who?

Then, of course, there is the Venus de Milo.  I have never been able to look at her without being reminded of Will Rogers' comment to his niece on seeing the statue, "See what will happen if you don't stop biting your fingernails?"

Venus de Milo

The final "icon" is the Winged Victory.

Winged Victory

Of course the range of paintings is enormous but I particularly enjoyed two El Greco canvases. Although, as I said above, I don't see much point in taking pictures of paintings, here are the two I admired. The first is Christ on the Cross with two of El Greco's patrons.

First El Greco

And the second is a portrait of Antoinio de Covarrubias y Leiva.

Portrait

There is so much to see that I think I had better stop here or I will go on for far too long.