The sky was a little more threatening as we woke up on Saturday morning, so we packed some umbrellas and headed down to a local cafe for breakfast. Croissants, coffee and orange juice, a great way to start the morning. We then caught the Metro back up into the heart of town and walked from Odeon station to the Louvre. Our timing was a little off - as we left the Metro, the skies opened and it bucketed down. Even with jackets and umbrellas, we were soaked through to the skin.
We ran for the entrance to the Louvre - only to find it also affected by the strike, and not open! We headed to a cafe next to the Louvre entrance, and whilst I ordered and got the heaters on the terrace turned on full blast, Nicole took the boys into the toilets and rung out their socks, and put these and their shoes under the hand dryers. They were better when they returned, but certainly not dry!
From our vantage point on the terrace over a coffee, we could see when the Louvre opened, and strolled over to join the line when it had finished raining, and we were finished with our coffees. After wringing out the sleeves on the boys jackets, we made our way into the Louvre and passed all of our wet stuff over the cloakroom attendants - who could hang it up for a few hours so it could dry!
We took the boys up into Denon wing, and looked at a lot of interesting Renaissance art. We finally reached the Mona Lisa, and we discussed this with the boys.
We then spent the next few hours working our way around sections of the gallery (much was closed) and the boys were fantastically behaved, and really interested in a lot of what we were showing them.
We ate lunch in the Louvre cafe, visited the inverted pyramid (famous from Dan Brown's DaVinci Code novel) and then picked up our (still damp) outer gear. At least the controlled environment in the Louvre meant that we were a bit dryer!
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