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Musee Louvre &
Musee Cluny
We left the hotel at 0830. Again
vehicular and pedestrian traffic was virtually nil. We got
turned around on the subway. We went the wrong way. we realized
it at the next step, so the delay was minimal. We got to the
Musee de Lourve at 0905.
We paid €8.50 and began our long
trek. There is still some debate about what percentage of the
Lourve that we actually walked through. I took 255 shots and
Dick took 70. I was again amazed by the Nikon Coolpix 5400's
ability to shot in low light. We saw quite a few people using
the flash. I only use it a couple of times (Mona Lisa & Venus de
Milo) to make sure I got at least one good shot.
There were a lot of people, but
it moved along quite nicely. We spent a lot of time in the
Italian and French painters section. They had paintings and
tapestries going back 600 years. They also had some early bronze
age works going back 2500 B.C.
The layout of the Louvre was
quite confusing. They are several floors spread across several
wings in several buildings. There was no real flow and we had to
double back several times to get the sections we wanted to
visit. The rooms were numbered and we had a map, but getting
from one section to another seemed more difficult than it needed
to be.
It seemed like they went out of
their to not make the transition between wings obvious, We hit
several dead ends and had to retrace our steps more than a few
times..
The scale of some the paintings
were unbelievable. Some of them had to be at least 20 feet high
by 50 feet. While the camera's low light capability were good,
they were not perfect. Some of the images came out blurry even
when I made a second or third shot because I could the shutter
speed was so low that I'd see a lot of blurring.
We never got around to eating
breakfast, we finally ate lunch around 1200. We had a single
slice of 4 cheese (damn, these French sure love their cheese)
pizza €7.00 and a 12 oz. Coke €2.50). That was something like
$12. Expensive fast food.
While I was shooting some
exterior shots, I used a feature called Panorama Assist in the
scene mode that I not used yet. When you take a series of shots
to create a panorama, the camera leaves a ghost image of the
right third or quarter of the previous image so you can line up
the next shot. Very cool. I have not tried stitching the
together, but I assume it will be better than the estimates i
used to do try panoramic shots.
We had a problem on the return
trip as well. We got on the wrong line this time. When we went
to return where we started, our tickets would not work and we
did not have any more. We had to buy more tickets.
We got back to the hotel around
1300. It took over an hour to retrieve, rotate and autobalance
the 325 pictures from the first part of the day. We relaxed for
a while before heading out.
We left the hotel again at 1530.
I took a few pictures of a local used book sale held in front of
a market. Books were €5.00)/kg. Cheaper than the food!
We went to the Musee Cluny which
is just one stop down from our hotel. The museum has one of the
best Roman and Medieval collections in Paris. This is where the
famous The Lady and the Unicorns tapestries reside. I took a lot
of pictures but only a couple of them are useable due to the low
lighting in the room which made the images blurry..
They had items on display going
back 2000 years. Most of them were religious items from various
churches. It probably took us a little over an hour to walk
through the displays. The entrance fee was €4.00). Well worth
the time and cost. Highly recommended.
We got back around 1645. It took
me an hour to transfer, rotate and autobalance the 259 pictures
I took to, at, and from the Musee Cluny. My camera acted up a
couple of times. First, the picture reset back to 1. I am not
sure what happened, but that option is buried pretty far down in
the menus, so I am sure I did not do it. The other problem was
that it would not shut off. I had to cycle it a few times to get
it to shut off.
We saw an Audi commercial with
Dustin Hoffman. The music was Simon and Garfunkel's Mrs.
Robinson. Dustin pulls up to a church in an Audi and a young
bride comes running out with her husband-to-be right behind her.
She jumps into Dustin's car and they drive off. This was one on
the German channels. Strange.
We went out to dinner at a cafe
brassiere just down the street from the hotel. I had the Steack
frites (steak and fries) and Dick had the Poulet a frites
(chicken & fries). I had a liter and Dick had a .5 liter of
Kronenburg 1664. Our meal was good. Nothing fancy, but tasty,
filling and reasonably priced. The total for the meal was
€38.60); €12.00 for the steak, €10.00 for the chicken, €12.00
for 1L beer, and €6.60 for the .5L beer. |
