Tourism

After my weekend at the Journées du Luth (very enjoyable) I stayed on in Paris for some sightseeing on Monday. Here's a classic scene of the Tuileries gardens with, of course, the Eiffel Tower in the background. As usual, click to enlarge.

Before that, I'd been to the Louvre, which is enormous. It needs to be, to accommodate the huge number of visitors. Especially around the Mona Lisa, which has a whole wall to itself and its own queuing system. For 5 euros you can hire a special Da Vinci Code audioguide to get the best out of the museum.

Far fewer visitors in the North European sculpture department, where I came across this wonderful carving of Mary Magdalene by a German sculptor in 1510. She is quite well covered at the front too.

The flight back on Monday evening was delayed by an hour. Our pilot admitted that the plane had been struck by lightning on its inward flight from Madrid, and he had called for engineers to inspect it. The storm reached us at home on Tuesday afternoon: torrential rain, hail, thunder, lightning and overflowing gutters.

The children have gone ice-skating this afternoon.