Today, we spent the morning touring the Louvre. Although it’s my fourth trip to Paris, I had not yet been inside. I thought it was going to be too expensive and too crowded, but neither proved to be true. Yes, it’s 12 euros to get in, but that’s not outrageous for such an amazing museum. I loved the bright, peaceful covered sculpture courtyards.

And I have always loved mille-fleurs style tapestry from the middle ages, and there were rooms filled with tapestry, nearly empty of people:

In fact the only really crowded place in the whole museum was in front of the Mona Lisa, which — with all due respect — is mostly famous for being famous, in my opinion. Maybe it’s amazing if you can actually see it, but it’s certainly not my favorite painting. It’s small and dark and behind glass, and the area in front of the painting is mobbed. People shove you from all sides just so they can hold their smartphone up to snap a photo. Yeesh. No thanks. We went. We looked. We tried to admire (while defending our space from elbows and our belongings from pickpockets). We did not bother to snap a photo, and got out of that room as quickly as possible.

Later we crossed the Seine and found an open door to a beautiful courtyard:

Paris is full of beauty, no doubt, but not this guy:

Seriously? It’s maybe 55 degrees!