It was only after I got up extra early, ate a good breakfast, packed some water and trail mix that I realized I was using my Whistler skills to negotiate my way around the Louvre. You see, the Louvre is huge\u2014it\u2019s really huge\u2014it\u2019s bigger than Whistler and Blackcomb combined (even including Creekside!). And the similarities don\u2019t end there.<\/p>\n
When you enter through the glass pyramid, there are four \u2018lifts\u2019 that, once you show your pass, carry you up to the galleries. Colour coded maps are provided to make it easier to find your way around, and a smart art connoisseur knows to take lunch early in one of the museum restaurants or face huge lunchtime crowds. To take the metaphor just a little further, I would re-organize the Louvre in the following fashion:<\/p>\n
All paintings that are not French or Renaissance would be classified as\u00a0Green<\/strong>\u00a0run (Colline de Lapin). These would include Flemish masters, any prints and drawings, and all art from the Middle Ages. Add to this, works from Mesopotamia, Persia, the Levant, and anything \u2018oriental\u2019 that is not Egyptian.<\/p>\n Blue<\/strong>\u00a0runs would include Greek, Etruscan, Egyptian, Roman sculpture, French paintings of the 18th and 19th Centuries with the possible exceptions of works by Delacroix and Jacques-Louis David which would be classified as Blue-black.<\/p>\n
![\"Mona-Lisa-At-The-Ski-Lodge\"](\"http:\/\/upload.wikimedia.org\/wikipedia\/commons\/9\/94\/Winged_Victory_of_Samothrace.jpg\")
After all the jostling, photo taking, gawking, and the like, the fun part would begin\u00a0Apr\u00e8s-Louvre<\/em>when everyone would descend from the galleries down to the surrounding caf\u00e9s, put their sore feet up, order rounds of beer, slap themselves on the backs in a congratulatory manner, and swap stories of their art-bum adventures.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"