PARIS
The Louvre
So huge is the Louvre – there are about 7,500 paintings
alone, displayed over nearly 15 acres, and divided across eight quite separate
departments – that it would take over three months to see every piece of art,
assuming you spent just 30 seconds looking at each, all day every day.
Obviously the thing to do is give each only ten seconds, so
that you can get round in a month. But, tempting as that prospect may seem,
reality has to come into the equation, and that invites focus, selectivity and
repeat visits to Paris. Well, no-one ever said that being a tourist was easy.
This remarkable, world-renowned museum wasn't always a
museum, however. Built in 1190 as a fortress, it became a royal palace in the
16th century, and during Napoleon's reign was renamed Musée Napoleon. He
significantly expanded the collection, but his acquisition techniques were exposed
as dictatorial when, following his defeat, no fewer than 5,000 items were
returned to their original owners. On which note, it is also interesting to
record that during World War II, the Nazis used the museum as a storeroom for
stolen art. Today, there are over 380,000 items in the Louvre collection; just
not all are on display. What is on show attracts more than 15,000 visitors per
day, 70% of whom are foreign tourists.
It was in August, 1793, that the Musée du Louvre, first opened
its doors to the public. For more than 600 years, the Louvre had been a symbol
of the wealth, power and decadence of the French monarchy, and the confiscation
and reconstituting of what had been a royal palace into a national museum was
seen as a grand cultural gesture embodying the egalitarian values of the recent
French Revolution.[1]
Among its most famous works, of course, is the Mona Lisa, a
half-length portrait of a woman by the Italian artist Leonardo da Vinci,
acclaimed as "...the best known, the most visited, the most written about,
the most sung about, the most parodied work of art in the world".[2]
The painting, in oil on a white Lombardy poplar panel, is
thought to be a portrait of Lisa Gherardini, the wife of Francesco del
Giocondo, and is believed to have been painted between 1503 and 1506. Not
everyone is so sure, and the identity of the woman has been disputed for
centuries, some even suggesting that it was a self-portrait and an allusion to
the artist's presumed homosexuality; that would certainly go some way to
explaining the smile.
The painting was acquired by King Francis I of France and is
now the property of the French Republic. Its value is unimaginable, so much so
that the insurance premiums were so high it was cheaper to improve the security
system, placing it behind glass to protect her enigmatic smile from thieves,
bullets, knives, spray paint, lipstick and society’s rich bag of assorted
nutters. In 1911 it was stolen by an Italian criminal who claimed his motive
was the painting’s repatriation to da Vinci’s native lands—for two years,
visitors to the Louvre were greeted by a vacant spot on the wall where the
painting had once been.[3]
In 2015, a painting by Picasso – Women of Algiers – sold for
a record $160 million, but some valuations would put the Mona Lisa as high as
$760 million, making it the most valued painting in the world. Ironically, its
size doesn’t match its price tag. At a mere 53cm by 77cm, it is not much larger
than an A2 sheet of paper, but weighing in – if that valuation is to be
believed – at an incredible $186,229 per square centimetre. Napoleon was so
impressed by the painting that he took it and hung it in his private bedroom.
The most distinctive of the Louvre’s hallmarks, however, is
not inside the museum, but outside: the glass pyramid, commission by François
Mitterand, built in 1989 and standing 21 metres high. It has been claimed that
the glass panes in the Louvre Pyramid number exactly 666, "the number of
the beast", often associated with Satan, although simple mathematics
disproves that – you don’t have to go and count them all. Beneath it, however,
if Dan Brown is to be believed, lie the remains of Mary Magdalene. Pure fiction,
of course. But is that also true of the ghost, a mummy called Belphegor, who
haunts the museum, or the man dressed in red who is said to haunt the Tuileries
gardens nearby?
What is certainly true, is that the Louvre is seamed with
culture, history and heritage, a place of enlightenment and inspiration.
Practical information
Open: Monday, Thursday, Saturday, Sunday: from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m.
Wednesday, Friday: from 9 a.m. to 9:45 p.m.
Closed on Tuesdays.
Wednesday, Friday: from 9 a.m. to 9:45 p.m.
Closed on Tuesdays.
From October to
March: access to the permanent collections is free for all visitors on
the first Sunday of each month.
Admission price €12 (permanent collections); €13
(exhibitions in the Hall Napoléon; combined ticket €16.
Tel: 01 40 20 50 50; www.louvre.fr/en
THE PARIS PASS
The Louvre is one of over 60 museums and art galleries
includes in the Paris Pass (www.parispass.com): 2-day €122; 4-day €182; 6-day
€219.
[1] Barbara Maranzani, 'Six things you may not know about
the Louvre', History in the headlines,
9 August 2013.
[2] John Lichfield, 'The moving of the Mona Lisa', The Independent, 2 April 2005.
[3] Maranzani, Op. Cit.
LYON
Musée des Confluences, Presqu’Île
Located at the very tip of Lyon’s Presqu’Île district,
where, as the name suggests, the Saône and the Rhône meet, the Musée des
Confluences received more than 150,000 visitors in the first few weeks of 2015,
having opened just before Christmas.
If you have
never visited a museum in your life before, and even if you vowed you never
would; now is the time to break that vow. Go out of your way to visit Lyon for
this museum alone; you will not be disappointed...amazed, sure, but not
disappointed. This extravagantly modern concept in museum design is the
successor of the former Musée Guimet and the Musée d'Histoire Naturelle to
whose collections, with superlative understatement, ‘it has given a new
configuration’.
And what a
configuration! This is Brigit Bardot meets the Eiffel Tower meets the Millau
Viaduct meets a team of museum-ists with a very idiosyncratic slant on design,
and, possibly, exclusive access to be best wines of the Rhône valley. This is a
dynamic and thought-provoking project that confronts contemporary questions,
issues and challenges, or, in less articulate language, one weird, wacky world
of wonderment.
The
building itself is a monumental collaboration of ideas meant to create an
environment that facilitates the links between things of the earth and things
of the skies, of Crystal and Cloud, symbolising openness to the surrounding
world.
The Cloud
element is constructed from a diversity of materials and standing on three
principal columns and fourteen monumental pillars that provide a load-bearing
skeleton and an outer skin with a combined weight of 6,000 tonnes.
Inside,
it’s all lifts and escalators and stairs and metal struts and great glass
roofs. One floor is given to temporary exhibitions, although with more than 800
items on display it would take some changing; one level up and we reached the
permanent displays set either side of a grand
couloir. There are more than 3,000 pieces on display from stromatolites to
a huge-osaurus, butterflies to brown bears, luxury cars to waffle makers; it’s
all quite bewildering in the most delightful way. Even the adults gaze in
wonder.
The
underlying thought behind the permanent displays is to demonstrate the enormous
variety of human existence, ‘...encompassing nature and the environment, the
objects we have created and the techniques we have developed, but also our
myths, narratives and geographical locations.’
There are
museums and museums, but I have to say this doesn't feel like a museum, it
doesn't look like a museum, and it doesn't smell like a museum. You really can
spend a whole day in here – with a break for lunch, of course – and since
that’s what I did, I heartily commend you to do the same.
Musée des
Confluences
ARRAS, PAS-DE-CALAIS
The Wellington Quarry memorialARRAS, PAS-DE-CALAIS
Just been to Arras, Pas-de-Calais, northern France, and visited some underground caves 'La Carrière Wellington':
With so many war memories now on display across northern France in particular,
the risk is that it all becomes too much. It's sad, and we need to remember
those who died, and, for that matter, those who fought and lived, like my
grandfather - he was at Ypres. But every so often you find something that is a
little out of the ordinary, something in the way of heritage tourism that is
worth the visit. These underground quarries are a case in point. I noted that a
small number of visitors found the experience 'terrible', but I can't
understand that, and for the most part, everyone, like my wife and I, were
enthralled by the visit.
When the time came, having watched a 10-minute film about the battle of Arras in April 1917, we donned protective headgear in the form of Tommy helmets, quaint and I'm guessing I looked odd, but it's the same for everyone. Then, although we had a guide (English-speaking tours available), we went down into a lift into the tunnels were thousands of troops were garrisoned for weeks and months, waiting to launch an attack on the unsuspecting Germans. It was all very moving, and all the other expressions of sadness that seem appropriate in such a setting, but the visit isn't just about the war; it's also about the work of New Zealand forces who used the quarry to link underground tunnels to great military effect. That's the real story here, that and the conditions the men endured.
If you walk from Arras, there is an underpass at the SNCF station, no need to walk around the streets; just walk into the station and you'll see steps leading down, although you'll need a map to find a way through the streets. About a 20-minute walk from the centre, or just 5 minutes by taxi.
When the time came, having watched a 10-minute film about the battle of Arras in April 1917, we donned protective headgear in the form of Tommy helmets, quaint and I'm guessing I looked odd, but it's the same for everyone. Then, although we had a guide (English-speaking tours available), we went down into a lift into the tunnels were thousands of troops were garrisoned for weeks and months, waiting to launch an attack on the unsuspecting Germans. It was all very moving, and all the other expressions of sadness that seem appropriate in such a setting, but the visit isn't just about the war; it's also about the work of New Zealand forces who used the quarry to link underground tunnels to great military effect. That's the real story here, that and the conditions the men endured.
If you walk from Arras, there is an underpass at the SNCF station, no need to walk around the streets; just walk into the station and you'll see steps leading down, although you'll need a map to find a way through the streets. About a 20-minute walk from the centre, or just 5 minutes by taxi.
Rue Arthur
Delétoille
62000 Arras
Tel. +33-(0)3 21 51 26 95
Email: contact@explorearras.com
DORDOGNE
Le Rocher des Aigles, Rocamadour
It is always tempting to think that when you've seen one flying display, you've seen them all. Think again! This magnificent setting, not far from the majesty of Rocamadour, is an altogether different experience, and it doesn't matter one jot that the commentary is in French. There is so much going on, as handlers come and go with cumbersome vultures hop, skip and jump along the ground, fly up to a perch and then spiral up into the sky, before plummeting back earthwards to take a piece of chicken from the handler's glove.
Created in 1977, Le Rocher des Aigles now boasts more than 400 birds over 60 different species, and put on a fast-moving and informative display whether it's by fast-flying barn owls and African Grey parrots or the huge and cumbersome condors, Imperial eagles and European vultures.
This is not a place where you might see two or three birds flying; here it seems that they all do, and often fly free over the adjacent countryside, but rarely not returning – this is, after all, where many of them were born. You can even watch an Egyptian vulture attempting to crack an egg, or listen, incredulously, as someone asks if you can make an omelette with the incubating condor eggs.
The Rocher des Aigles is an perfect escape for anyone exploring the Dordogne valley, with or without children.
Le Rocher des Aigles
46500 Rocamadour
Tel: 05 65 33 65 45
Open
April to September
Times vary, but generally from around lunchtime to 7pm
The display lasts for about 1 hour, and is in French.DORDOGNE
Take a boat trip on the Dordogne
The name Dordogne has evolved from the Celtic words Du unna meaning fast water. During the Roman Empire, the river was known as the Duranius, which during the Middle Ages gradually evolved to Duranna, Durunia, Durdunia, Dordoigne and finally Dordogne.
The river, whose source is high on the Puy de Sancy (1 886m/6 186ft), in the Auvergne, crosses five departments (Puy de Dôme, Corrèze, Lot, Dordogne and Gironde) before joining the Garonne to form the Gironde estuary.
The river, whose source is high on the Puy de Sancy (1 886m/6 186ft), in the Auvergne, crosses five departments (Puy de Dôme, Corrèze, Lot, Dordogne and Gironde) before joining the Garonne to form the Gironde estuary.
The upper section of the river, upstream of Souillac, is little more than a narrow strip of water flanked by steep cliffs, and navigable only for about 30 days of the year, in spring and autumn when the water level was high. The middle section of the river was navigable for 6 to 8 months of the year. Boats from this part of the river would transport oak, chestnut, cheese and wine from Domme and would return with salt, wheat and salted fish. The lower section of the river was permanently navigable.
One of the finest ways to familiarise oneself with the river is by taking a 55-minute trip on one of the traditional flat-bottomed boats, known as gabares that were used for transporting goods between the Massif Central and Bergerac, Librouen and Bordeaux. The gabares were originally built to transport wood from the forests, in particular Oak used to produce vats and barrels, and Chestnut used to make the stakes to support vines.
Our boat trip was enhanced by canoeists who thought it was hilarious to splash everyone with water as we passed by (Oh, we did enjoy that!), and did our Captain noticeably slow down as we cruised past a topless, young lady canoeist? (Oh, we did enjoy that, too!)
But this aside, to see La Roque Gageac, one of the most beautiful villages in France, from river level was a special treat, although, apparently, the river does sometimes rise higher than road level, with devastating effect.
Gabares NORBERT
Le bourg
24250 LA ROQUE GAGEAC
Tel: 05 53 29 40 44
Le bourg
24250 LA ROQUE GAGEAC
Tel: 05 53 29 40 44
Open
Daily between 10am and 6pm from La Roque-Gageac
April to October
Audio guides included
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