No Ordinary Date Night

Thanks to J's mom for watching the kids, we got to go on our second date night while in the City of Lights.  Date nights here are just a little more elevated because of the rich selection of restaurants and museums.  For tonight, we headed to the Louvre Museum, of course.  I visited the former palace once before, twenty-three years ago, (gosh that was a long time ago), so the Mona Lisa was due a visit.  She's still the most popular girl in the joint.  I did notice that her surroundings have been upgraded to a much better display.  I stopped to see several of my favorite paintings, which I surprisingly still remembered where they were located.

 

Mona Lisa

Louvre's grand hallways

Something I did not see the last time I was at the Louvre was the "Medieval Louvre".  The Louvre Museum has been a "Grand Gallery" since 1793. But long before it became a public museum, the Louvre was a fortress dating back to the reign of Philippe Auguste, the French king who paved the streets and built the walls of Paris.

Thanks to archaeological excavations in the mid-1980s, a "Medieval Louvre" exhibition beneath the Louvre Museum's Coeur Carré courtyard now lets visitors explore the ruins of the castle that existed from 1190 AD until the early 16th Century, when the keep was torn down to make way for the Renaissance palace that survives as the Musée du Louvre.

Archaeological dig on the plaza of the Louvre

Standing in Medieval Louvre

A trip to Paris would not be complete for J without a trip to Le Refuge des Fondus just steps from Sacre Coeur.  For anyone who's been to Basilica of the Sacre Coeur, you know it's uphill all the way.  We walked for 40 minutes uphill from the Louvre to the restaurant, so I didn't feel too guilty about eating bread dipped in melted cheese for dinner.  My fitbit logged close to 27,000 steps this date night.

Wine "Bottle" and  Melted Cheese