This post is for our friends who love chocolate. (you know who you are!)

We were walking the Paris streets enjoying the day and stopped into a chocolate store which makes all their own chocolate. The store looked more like an art studio than a chocolate store. We walked by the store at first and then noticed it was chocolates so of course we headed inside to check it out.

The store front is fairly small and it was full of chocolate displays. Some of the displays were spectacular and quite creative. There were some huge chocolate eggs that were almost 3 feet high.

The huge chocolate eggs were all for sale, but a tad expensive for us. One of the big eggs cost 220 euros. We stayed far away from those eggs in case we knocked one over.

On a smaller scale there were more art decor chocolates. Here are a few of the displays.

 

We found it very interesting and creative. The place was busy and there were some people buying some of those displays. We decided the displays would be too hard to pack and left without buying anything.

“au revoir et bonne journée”

On Wednesday it was raining and cold in Paris so we decided to make it a museum day. We headed out early and took a taxi to the Louvre museum. The museum is a massive building and is very impressive even from the outside. Below is the entrance to the yard area of the Louvre.

We got to the entrance area early just after opening and there was only a small line up. We decided that we would make this a full day because really the museum is so big you need at least one full day to see most of it.

The inside of the Louvre has spectacular architectural features. We entered the museum through the glass Pyramid entrance.  Inside the Louvre there is an inverted glass pyramid on the main floor.

The museum is separated into three main wings.  They are the Sully, Richelieu and Denon wings, each one is dedicated to a selected area of art and history. We started with the Denon wing, which has the famous Mona Lisa painting and assorted collections of amazing marble and stone statues some from the Roman and Etruscan times.

In the main stairway leading to the second floor in the Demon wing there is a statue called the Winged Victory of Samothrace. This is a Greek marble statue and it is prominently displayed on the landing of the staircase.

The marble statues were very impressive with some very famous ones.  Below are only a few of the statues we saw.

Zeus in ancient greek mythology was the god who ruled as king of the gods of Mount Olympus.

The architecture and decor of the Louvre is massive and very impressive.

There was a lot of impressive artwork besides the Mona Lisa. I have a few examples below.

The David and Goliath oil painting is actually painted on two different canvases and mounted against each other. The paintings are slightly different showing a lapse of time in the battle between David and Goliath.

We toured a major portion of the museum during our day but did not see it all. The museum is so big it requires more than a day to see it all. We had a pedometer with us for the day and we walked over 18 kms that day. It was an excellent but very tiring day.

“au revoir et bonne journée”