Paris, Day 17: Les Jardins des Tuileries, Le Petit Palais and Le Louvre

Originally published on January 26, 2014, this blog post series is an undergraduate short-term study abroad trip in Paris, France in partnership with Salve Regina University and AIFS Abroad. The blog post may have been edited for clarity and updated with relevant travel information and links.

Between walking around several major sites in class and visiting exhibitions in the Louvre, this class wins for the most amount of walking our group has done in one day.

We started the morning in class at Pont Neuf, then worked our way through Pont des Arts, Saint-Germain-l’Auxerrois, the Louvre, Les Jardins des Tuileries, la Place de la Concorde, le Petit Palais, and le Grand Palais. We also stopped at the beginning of Les Champs-Élysées to talk about l’Arc de Triomphe, but to the relief of our feet, we didn’t walk down one of the longest roads in Paris.

Like I had said earlier about Versailles, it’s hard to imagine how large some of the museums and monuments are in Paris until you visit them in person.  Because it was my first visit to the Louvre, I decided to wander freely through the exhibitions to fully appreciate the museum—the imagination doesn’t quite capture how rich and beautiful every corner of the Louvre is.

Also, there is so much to see that it would be a shame to ruin the spectacle by rushing through everything. I made sure to see the major artefacts and paintings—the Mona Lisa, Venus de Milo,etc.—but for the most part, wandering was the best strategy.