The Mona Lisa!

For our fourth day in Paris, we spent the morning at St. Chapelle, and then the bulk of the afternoon at the L'Ouvre. A relative had recommended St. Chapelle, and we really enjoyed seeing it. The chapel is almost entirely stained glass, so it's really pretty when the sunlight comes in and hits the different windows. Here's a picture of one of the windows:

After we left St. Chapelle, we stopped by Notre Dame again so Hubby could climb the tower. You are still able to climb some of the towers of the churches in Europe, and Hubby wanted to try this one. It was the same tower Victor Hugo wrote about in Hunchback of Notre Dame. I don't do heights, so Hubby was on his own for the 400+ stair climb. Here is a picture from the top:
After Hubby finished his climb, we were ready to see one of the most storied museums in the world. We headed first in the direction of Winged Victory and the Mona Lisa. Winged Victory was quite impressive. I liked how they had it displayed on top of a staircase, and it was much, much bigger than I thought it would be. We continued on, admiring all the paintings, but the best parts for me were the ceilings. Don’t forget to look up when sightseeing in Europe. You’ll miss some of the best stuff.

We got a peak at the Mona Lisa between the heads of the people crowded around her. By this time, we needed to get away from the crowds, so we made our way to the sculptures. And there I discovered my favorite piece: The Veiled Lady. I couldn’t believe I was looking at stone, it was so realistic and delicate looking. Before leaving, we saw the Medieval L’Ouvre, which Hubby and I also really liked—it is the foundations of the old building. I would recommend that as well, to anyone who is going.

You could spend a week in the L’Ouvre, and still maybe not see it all. One thing that really helped us was reading about the collection beforehand, and deciding what it was that we wanted to focus on. If we hadn’t done this, I would have felt very, very…lost.

We didn't take many pictures inside the building because it wasn't worth fighting the crowds, but here are is a picture of the outside:

That night we took a cruise down the Seine. The cruise was nice (bring a jacket!). But I think we were spoiled with our apartment. I enjoyed seeing all of the sights at night from the boat, but…it just wasn’t the same as looking out over all of Paris from our apartment. But I would definitely recommend the cruise nevertheless.