Today, it rained slightly most of the day. So we went to the Louvre. I know that I had heard that the Louvre was overwhelming, but we hurried through the rooms on just one of the four floors which contained part of their collection of materials from Mesopotamia from 5,300 BC to about 730 BC. It took us almost five hours. This place is Antiquities Central. Several collections from pioneer French archeologists in the early 1800's were sent here, and stored until 50 years ago. Since many of the sites are in areas where the fighting occured in the several wars fought by Iraq over the past thirty years, it may have been fortunate that the material was here. But I was disturbed watching an Iraqi father photograph his wife and son in front of a statue taken from a now-empty ancient palace near his home.
We'll be going back again soon. All of our looting would really be wasted if no one learned about those great civilizations and people.
By the way, kudos to the management staff of Villa Beaumarchais. They believe in wifi access, and have installed there own free system. It beats the usual top of the line service - providing you access to a subscription service (which they provide as a backup service). I will definitely recommend Villa Beaumarchais to my friends coming to Paris.
Gregory
To see the photos we took today, click on:
Wednesday, Oct 21st
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