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Dec 07 2010

Paris: Visit to the Louvre Museum

Posted by: Thierry in Travel, Album update, Our news
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I went several times to Paris, but I never got the chance to visit the Louvre Museum: the one time I showed up to visit was a Tueday morning in 1997, and it happens that the museum is closed every Tuesday.

About a year ago, I went in this area at night and got some very nice shots of the outside of the museum. Here are a few pictures from last year:

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The album from that night visit is available HERE.

This time around, the weather was boring and cold, so a visit to the museum on Sunday morning was perfect to pass time. I headed to the museum for the opening at 9 am using the Metro. The most popular attraction at the museum is  BY FAR the ‘Joconde’ portrait by Leonardo Davinci. The museum was pretty quiet at the opening, so I headed to that area right away to avoid the crowds. They have the protrait behind a glass, which makes it hard to get a good photograph: there a lot of reflections. It’s also the only piece they made you keep a certain distance from. Here a few pictures:

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On the opposite wall was this HUGE painting of the ‘Noce de Cana’:

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Actually, there was a lot of huge paintings:

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Here are some other very nice paintings I encountered along the way…

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The museum is just HUGE and it was easy to get temporary lost in it :) One would need the most part of a week if looking at everything. The building itself is a work of art. Look at the paintings on the cielings here:

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Big halls…

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I did not have the time to see everything, so I have to make a choice. I decided to look at the egyptian collection since I have never seen anything egyptian other than in pictures before :)

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One of the other most well known pieces of arts there is the famous ‘Venus de Milo’ statue in the greek statue collection.

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Among other pieces I found interesting, this engraved plate dating back from 1800 B.C. There was a complete translation of the text below the item. Amazing that people can translate that stuff.

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Medieval stained glass

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Here is the view from the museum hall, within the glass pyramid.

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I am glad I had a good camera with good HIGH ISO performance. This allowed me to have most pictures pretty sharp while keeping the noise to an acceptable level.

Here is the complete album for larger and additional pictures.

Louvres Museum Paris
 
 
Louvre Museum

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