Paris - Part 2

For our 2nd day in Paris, we decided to go to the Louvre.  I was pretty excited to visit this museum.  It's perhaps the most famous museum in the world, housing thousands and thousands of historical artifacts.  Not only does it house a huge collection of art, the buildings themselves are pretty amazing.  Parts of the Louvre palace date back to the 12th century and over the years was owned and lived in by various monarchs.  After the French revolution, it opened as a museum in 1793.  The museum was as beautiful outside as in.

We spent most of the day exploring this huge museum and still saw only a portion of it.  The kids carried around their sketch books and drew when they got a chance.  A few of our favorites were the Mona Lisa.

Look at that crowd!

Yeah, yeah, they always talk about it being overrated, it's smaller than you would expect, there are huge crowds and you can barely see it.  But, it's pretty neat being able to say you have seen the Mona Lisa in person.  I really liked the Venus de Milo statue.

  I think we all really liked the sculptures.  There are 2 huge rooms, that are open and airy with statues placed around them that were fun to be in.

These 2 women were sitting on a step sketching the sculptures and our kids were entranced.  They went and sat by them and started sketching as well.  It was pretty funny.

We also really enjoyed the egyptian section and the kids favorite was "Dum Dum", the Easter Island head from the Night at the Museum movie.

Make your best "Dum Dum" face.

 Really, it was just an amazing museum.  You really need more than one day there, but with 3 kids, we covered a lot of ground.

There were several main attractions at the Louvre and they were so crowded!  However, other areas we practically had to ourselves.

The Grand Gallery

I don't know what's up with Noah's smile.

 After leaving the museum, we walked along the river and over the "lock" bridge.  It was a beautiful evening.

The kids were fascinated with the locks, trying to find the biggest and the smallest.

What a beautiful evening on the Seine.

For our 3rd day in Paris, we started out at the Cathedral of Notre Dame. 

This was one of my favorite places we visited during our visit to Paris.  I just love old churches.  We walked around inside and viewed the beautiful stained glass windows and various sculptures.

 I am always so amazed at these beautiful buildings and how they were constructed so long ago.  Of course, the cathedral has changed and been rebuilt over the years, but it stands so majestic still.  We had to wait a long time to go up the stairs to visit the bell towers and unfortunately, they were closed, so we were only able to look through slots to see the great bells of Notre Dame, but the truly magical part of the cathedral was the Gargoyles and Chimeras. 
Gargoyles are water spouts shaped as animals that drain water away from the building.  Chimeras are the animals situated around the walls of the cathedral and are meant to ward away evil spirits.  These were really so neat to see!

After leaving here, we did a little shopping and had lunch out the most delicious cafe.  So yummy!  Then we walked forever to go and visit the Catacombs of Paris, where we then waited for 2 hours to go inside.  I wished I'd taken a picture of the line, it was crazy.  But, I would say it was definitely worth it.  One of the most unique things I've ever seen.  The  catacombs were originally abandoned limestone mines.  In the late 1700's, the city's cemeteries were completely overflowing and causing health hazards.  It was then decided to empty out some of the cemeteries into the old mines.  It took 2 years to empty the cemeteries and now hold the remains of over 6 million people!  The head of the Paris Mine inspection service undertook the task of arranging the skeletons into a type of mausoleum so that people could visit.  What a cool, creepy place! 

One of several sculptures created by quarrymen, before the arrival of all the bones.

Oooh, Scary...

We walked on and on and on, past so many skeletons.  It was hard to comprehend the amount of bodies there, not to mention the work of arranging them all.  I think this ended up being a favorite of all of ours.