Trips We Remember: Our First Trip to Paris

The Louvre

The glass pyramid was added to the museum in 1989 as part of a more efficient system for handling entering visitors.

We don't really need a snapshot of the Mona Lisa. Great reproductions of this painting are easy to find. But take a look at the lower portion of this photo, which shows some of her eager fans, reflected in the protective glass barrier.

Everybody wants to get as close as possible to the famous picture. What you can't see, until you are within a few layers of the front, is the railing that keeps people at a distance, enforced by security guards who stand facing the crowd.

Another famous work that everyone wants to see is Venus de Milo. However, the crowd here was not nearly as dense. We were able to walk around and snap a few clear pictures.

Tourists make the trek toward Winged Victory.

All those hallways and staircases are exhausting!

Ancient Roman sculpture of a centaur.

Portrait of Alessandro Filipepe by Botticelli.

In 2000, a small, somewhat isolated section of the Louvre was dedicated to non-European art.

Just another guy with a cellphone and a machete

A statue from the Republic of Benin

A big head from Easter Island

A Chupicuaro statuette from Mexico

An ancient Nigerian sculpture

The Rodin Museum

The Rodin Museum includes lovely gardens where some of the sculptor's most famous works are displayed.

One of Rodin's early works

Two views of "The Thinker"

"The Gates of Hell" was inspired by Dante's "Inferno". It includes characters from the poem as well as small versions of some of Rodin's other sculptures. Unfortunately, it was never completed.

"The Burghers of Calais"

Rodin working on "The Gates of Hell", sculpted by Emile-Antoine Bourdelle

The Pompidou Center

A painting by Henri Matisse

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The modern art collection at the Pompidou Center includes a few works by Piet Mondrian, but none was on display the day we were there. Instead we found this fake-fur parody by Silvie Fleury.