**In this series of posts, I revisit interesting locations and sites that I never got around to posting about when I originally visited them.**
Paris, May 2013
On the day we visited the Louvre back in 2013, it was rainy all day and I think we had an easier time with tourists because of it. I'm the first to admit, I'm not the biggest fan of art museums. Give me a natural history museum or technology museum and I'm a happy camper but an art museum doesn't do much for me.
The Louvre, of course, is the mother of all art museums and I previously wrote about seeing parts of the Parthenon there at the time of our visit but I never got around to showing our experience seeing their most famous piece, the Mona Lisa.
While the museum was generally busy, without question the busiest room was the room with the Mona Lisa. Viewers are kept well away from the painting as it has been attacked many times by onlookers. In 1956 acid was thrown at it and in other occasions a rock and even a coffee mug from the Louvre gift shop has been thrown at Da Vinci's work.
She is kept behind bullet-proof triple-paned glass which makes getting a good photo of the work nearly impossible.
But that doesn't stop people from crowding around with their high-powered cameras trying to get a perfect photograph that just isn't going to happen with that glass in front of it.
For me, the artistry of sculpture is so much more beautiful than a painting. My favorite Louvre piece is the headless Nike of Samothrace which dates back to the 2nd century BC. It was found in 1863 on the island of Samothrace which is one of the most northern Greek islands near Turkey and has been on display at the Louvre since 1884.
Here's another photo from a different angle.
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