Monday, November 30, 2009

Ideas help you in the Louvre Museum


The Musée du Louvre in Paris is perhaps the most famous museum in the world.
1. Getting into the building
The long queues at the Pyramid entrance in the centre
of the Louvre are almost as famous as the museum itself.
Getting in line for an entrance ticket at the Pyramid can sometimes take as long as an hour.
That’s hardly surprising when 15,000 people a day visit the building.
But did you know that there are four other entrances?
If you want to avoid the queues then try using the entrance
at the Porte des Lions just east of the Pont Royal; at number 99 the Rue du Rivoli; at the Arc du Carousel or directly from the Metro station Palais Royal-Musée du Louvre (platform on line 1).
You can escape the queues completely by purchasing your ticket in advance at FNAC or other department stores.
There’s usually a small fee of a couple of euros per ticket for this service.
2. Good value tickets
Entrance to the Louvre is €9. If you head there after 6pm on a Wednesday or Friday, entrance is reduced to just €6 and the museum is open until 9.45pm.
Entrance is free for under 26s on Friday evenings.
On Bastille Day (14 July) and the first Sunday of each month entrance
is free for everyone, all day.
Be warned though, the galleries get even more busy at these times.
3. Get the view of an expert
The Louvre is massive. There are 35,000 works of art and 380,000 museum objects to see.
It’s so huge that it would take you a whole
day just to walk through all the galleries, never mind seeing any of the art.

In fact, a good way to get an overview of this enormous museum is to take one of the excellent guided tours, which depart from under the Pyramide throughout the day.
Tours are available in a variety of languages and are aimed at different levels, from first-time visitors to art experts. Tour times vary daily
so check the board when you arrive to see what’s on offer that day.
4. Check in advance
Of course, no trip to the Louvre is complete without seeing the Mona Lisa and the Venus de Milo. The Louvre have a habit of moving these
masterpieces around the building at short notice, so if you want to avoid wandering endless galleries needlessly
then take a quick look at their website before you visit www.louvre.fr.
5. Stop and recharge
With so many galleries, you’ll be in need of refreshment.
There are good places to eat and drink in the Louvre, but be warned that the Café Denon and Café Richlieu are rather expensive. Better value can be had at the Café Mollien (on the first floor) which also has a summer terrace.
But if you want to escape the building
you can get good snacks and light lunches in the
many cafés in the beautiful Jardins des Tuileries.
Also look out for the mobile snack stands which serve good
quality coffee at half the price of the museum cafés.

Louvre Museum


The national museum of France is Louvre and is situated in Paris.
It is one of the most historic pieces of art that has been restored by the French.
There is a very common saying for the French that they consider
themselves the best in the world. One can only be less or equal
but never better than them.
The museum is spread in a total area of 652,300 square feet and has more than thirty five thousand objects placed in it.
It is almost impossible to see the entire museum in a couple of hours and do justice to every piece of art that is placed from the 6th century BC till the 19th century AD.
This museum was actually built as the fort for Philip II and some remains of the fort are still present, not exactly in its best shape.
A lot of changes in terms of its structure have been made to give it the present look and finally it was decided to keep the royal collection in the museum.
The museum was inaugurated in 1739.
However, due to some infrastructural problems, it was shut down for almost a period of 5 years. Some of the most famous pieces
of art that is displayed is the Antonio Canova’s Psyche, the Venus de Milo, the Mona Lisa painting, some handprints and drawings, Egypt, Greek, and roman antiques, along with handmade cultures and beautiful glass paintings.
The museum thus has a very rich heritage that has made the French proud of it.

Versailles city



Versailles a city renowned for its château, the Palace of Versailles
was the de facto capital of the kingdom of France for over a century, from 1682 to 1789.

Toulouse - france


Toulouse is a city in southwest France on the banks of the River Garonne, 590 km away from Paris and half-way
between the Atlantic Ocean and the Mediterranean Sea.
the Toulouse metropolitan area is the fifth-largest in France.
Toulouse is the home base of the European aerospace industry
Toulouse was the capital of the former province of Languedoc
It is now the main city of the Midi-Pyrénées region, the largest region
in metropolitan France.
It is also the main city of the Haute-Garonne

strasbourg - france


Strasbourg is the capital and principal city of the Alsace region in north-eastern France.
Located close to the border with Germany, it is the capital of the Bas-Rhin department.
Strasbourg is the seat of several European institutions such as the Council of Europe and the Eurocorps as well as the European Parliament and the European Ombudsman of the European Union. Strasbourg is an important centre of manufacturing and engineering, as well as of road, rail, and river communications.
The port of Strasbourg is the second largest on the Rhine after Duisburg, Germany.
The city is the seat of the Central Commission for Navigation on the Rhine.
Strasbourg's historic city centre, the Grande Île, was classified
a World Heritage site by UNESCO