#flashbackfriday – Paris Notebook
October 8, 2001 – We’ve set aside this day for the Louvre and, expecting to spend a full day there, arrive at 9:00 a.m. only to find it CLOSED due to a strike by museum staff!!! Pour ce jour seulement? we ask the guard. Oui, ce jour seulement. Some shrugging and further words to convey Today only, yes, so far . . . but who knows? Our self-portrait here belies our disappointment. We head to Pompidou to look at modern art instead.
We ended up wandering past the Louvre again later, when we’d finished at Pompidou. And now it was open! Only a demi-journée strike, I suppose. We were pressed for time, of course, but there were no crowds. We actually stood right in front of the Mona Lisa with perhaps one or two other people in the room. I’m sure we saw only a quarter of it. Still, a successful day after all.
© Kiki Yee, 2011
Miscellany, Musings & Meanderings 