We made our way over to the Louvre first thing this morning. At 9:15 am there were no lines… yay! There was a temporary exhibit on Babylon so of course we wanted to check that out.
This is a special project between the Louvre, the British Museum and the Staatliche Museum in Berlin. It first showed in Paris, then it was in October from June to October 2008 and it’s now showing at the British Museum until March 15, 2009.
At the Louvre, the exhibit goes through the history of ancient Babylon to pretty much modern day. It includes architecture, art, film, literature and mythology. Many of the pieces had never been shown together. Others have never been displayed outside of private collections.
This particular exhibition I thought did a beautiful job of really creating a story of the fascinating city of Babylon. Entering the first section, you can view many of the artifacts and archaeological discoveries made. The Code of Hammurabi of course was centre stage in the room. The lion tiles of the Ishtar Gates were beautiful. Cuneiform tablets, hand-written Talmud texts, engravings by Dürer and drawings by Blake. The exhibition ends with aerial photographs of the ancient city ruins after WWI and sketches done by American architect Frank Lloyd Wright.
Since we had skipped breakfast, we were pretty famished at this point. We chose to have some pretty awful coffee and even worse sandwiches (soggy tuna sandwich, what was I thinking?) at the café in the atrium.
Feeling nourished and energized again, we explored the rest of the Louvre. Of course I wanted to start in the Denon Wing where the Italian Renaissance Masterpieces by Titian, Botticelli, Raphael and Da Vinci are housed (Mona Lisa there as well). I also love the Winged Victory of Samothrace and kept staring at it in awe.
We next went to the Apollo Gallery, where you can view the 140 carat Regent Diamond. Of course, having visited the Hall of Mirrors in Versailles the previous day, it seemed a bit anti-climatic.
Never mind. Having had our interest in the Eastern Mediterranean piqued by the Babylon exhibit, we went to view the Mesopotamian and Egyptian antiquities.
Sarchophagi and papyri. Figurines and amulets. Coffins and mummies. Statues and mural paintings. Alabaster reliefs and copper tablets. A complete feast for the eyes. Surprisingly, this section of the museum was almost completely empty.
By this time, our eyes were almost bleary from all the amazing things we had seen. I highly recommend going to the Louvre website before visiting to figure out your priorities. Before leaving, we went to the Gift Shop and bought a couple of books and magnets.
At this point, we decided to have a second (late) lunch / early dinner at Ladurée on rue Bonaparte. I may have had the best club sandwich ever with sliced hard-boiled egg, smoked chicken, romaine hearts and tomatoes. I also had a hot chocolate and a raspberry macaroon for dessert. To be totally honest, I would have better macaroons elsewhere but it’s a perfectly nice place to come just for the ambience. It’s a tiny bit pretentious but the service is still nice.