Today we went to the Louvre bright and early. We wandered into some galleries I'd never seen before, which was terrific. Morgan and I got to stand in front of the crown jewels without any other people there for about a minute, which was also terrific and quite rare. We saw the Mona Lisa, of course, and lots of Egyptian artifacts and many many many paintings of dead religious people. The Napoleonic apartments are always amazing with the huge rooms and the tiny bed. Morgan really liked the Feast at Cana, which is a massive painting in the same room as the Mona Lisa. We had lunch at Cafe Marly and got to have the truly French experience of it taking 45 minutes to pay the bill. We did go to L'Orangerie with only a 20 minute wait in line. The Monet murals were sublime, and the private collection downstairs was surprisingly extensive and probably satisfied my need to see French impressionist paintings.
Tomorrow we will go to the Picasso Museum and wander around the Marais and the Place des Vosges, then go to Notre Dame cathedral and maybe take another afternoon nap.
We take the TGV to Provence on Sunday and start riding horses through the countryside on Monday. It's still quite gray and gloomy here. I'm glad I brought an umbrella!