Thursday Night-The Moulin Rouge!

After more sightseeing during the day, we went back to the hotel, showered, rested (very quickly) and then headed out for our night on the town!!

I have to admit, this was one part of our trip that I was really looking forward to!  The Moulin Rouge! Home of the famous Paris Can-Can dancers!!  Our original plan was a dinner/theater combo.  We would have eaten in Montmarte, tour the artist district and Sacre Cour Cathederal all prior to the show.  During the booking process, we found out that the tickets where limited and that this was not going to happen.  We were bummed, but determined!   We where able to get tickets though the Moulin Rouge site, without all of the other extras added-which turned out to be the better of the deals!  With the hot weather and all the walking the 1st deal would have been too much.  Instead, we had a wonderful steak dinner at our favorite Cafe on our corner, then headed out to the show!!  And p.s-if you are in a group of 5+ you have to take more than one cab-they only allow four per cab.  We were all in heels and nice clothes, so we opted to take the cabs;-)

Me in the cab line with the Moulin Rouge in the background

The only picture I had inside the theater was the one below-they took your camera before you entered the show!

We were a little nervous once we got there because of a very very long line!  I knew for sure that we would have horrible seats-boy was I wrong!  The way the theater is set up there is no bad seat!!  We were up close and enjoyed the Champagne!!  It was the most entertaining live show I've seen.  Was very happy that it turned out better than I could imagine!  Parisian women don't believe in plastic surgery-lol.  There was a mix of topless and fully clothed women, and the topless where not enhanced!  It was actually nice to see women embrace their natural size;-)  The show was not only dancing, there was magic, animals and comedy.  Highly recommend a night at the Moulin Rouge!

Since we were in the "red light" district, lol, we took in the local sights ;-)

This was definitely a seedier section of town.  We did not check out that store, but we did find some good souvenir shops.  I found a cute hat that night! 

After the show, cabs were a little difficult to find.  The cabs don't pick you up just anyhere, they have taxi lines.  We met a nice Indian couple from Canada.  It was there 1st encounter with Texans-they loved our accents!!  This part of town is very club like, so there where a lot of loud clubbers in the area-a few tried to steal our cab-but we set them straight!

Thursday-We meet Mona Lisa!!

Thursday morning we made our way to the Louvre.   We headed over early and had breakfast at a cafe by The Louvre.  Best way to start the day before site seeing..

Can you tell I really enjoyed the food??? LOL

 Again, can't stress how much the Paris Museum Pass helped out!  Skipping the long line at the Louvre was so worth the cost of the pass!!  The Louvre is such an awesome huge place!  We saw it all lite up at night, but it is so impressive to walk up and see the big Pyramid at the entrance!

Made me think of the Da Vince Code ;-)

Once inside-the very hot Pyramid-we made our way to find the Mona Lisa before the crowds got too big.  On our way to the Mona Lisa, I was so overwhelmed by the paintings-the fact that we were seeing such famous artists was so surreal.  Some of my faves were the Bottacelli's and Raphael.  At the top of the stairs before we entered the gallery, we encountered our 1st famous sculpture.....

The Winged Victory of Samothrace

Greek Goddess Nike

But we were on a mission-find the Mona Lisa!!  We found the signs directing us to the Mona Lisa-stopping quickly to look at the other famous paintings-which we would make our way back to eventually;-)

Our mission was a success....

There she is-the most famous lady in the Louvre!  Most people are shocked at the size of the portrait-I felt it was exactly what I expected.  The room was pretty crowded, but so worth it!  It was and still is very surreal to me that I was actually there and seeing all this famous historical art!!

So, what about all the other famous things in this great Museum???  Where was the Venus de Milo? Where was the Cupid statue?  And why did we not see signs directing us to these famous sites??  We asked ouselves these questions as we found ourselves exiting the Louvre....this is where the Paris Museam Pass came in very handy.  We headed back to the entrance, skipped the lines and found ourselves staring at the signs directing us to all the other great works of art, signs we just knew were no where to be found on our first go round!!!  That's what happens when you are so focused on not missing the Mona Lisa!!! 

Lucky for us, we slowed down and enjoyed the rest of the museum-and laughed at ourselves in the process!!  Here a few of the things we saw on our 2nd trip.....

The lovely Venus de Milo-so pretty in person

One of the Cupid sculptures-this was my favorite!

Loved these-the artist used fruits and vegetables to create the faces and bodies

Here are a few more of my faves-can't show them all-you'll just have to go visit and see them all for yourself!

I really recommend if you visit the Louvre-give yourself a whole day if you can-we had a lot crammed in and missed more than I like to think about-but tried to hit the hightlights!