On my first trip to Paris, I noticed an entrance to a building right next to the Louvre. It had a bright red awning that read Carousel du Louvre over the door. Knowing how popular old fashioned carousels are in France, nearly every town I have visited has at least one, I assumed that is what was housed in this building. In my mind, I envisioned a grand vintage carousel, preserved and/or restored, housed indoors to protect it.
Imagine my surprise when exploring locations for the Mariage Freres Tea Salons here in Paris, I found one was located in the Carousel du Louvre. We tried calling to verify the location, but got no answer. When we were discussing this on the bus one day, deciding whether to get off and hunt for it, a very helpful French woman came to our rescue. She informed us it was located under the Louvre and could be accessed either through the carousel door or from the museum itself. Okay, we thought…we’ll check it out another day. Well today was the day.
Guess what you do with several blocks of wasted space under one of the largest museums in the world? You build a shopping mall, of course. Here is just a bit of what we saw.
I forgot to take a photo of the entrance to the “carousel”, but you get the idea. Note the floor plan map and the underground tip of the entrance pyramid for the LOUVRE. Speaking of entrance and LOUVRE…guess what the two really long lines are? Yep, those are the people who opted to wait in line underground rather than stand in the sun to wait at the main entrance. Want to know how long that line was…
PS: We also found the Mariage Freres Tea Salon. See separate page.
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