And So I Don't Forget...

Visiting Mona Lisa

Leonardo da Vinci's Mona Lisa is one of the most famous paintings in the world. Maybe the most famous. Yet many of her visitors, thousands upon thousands each year, leave feeling underwhelmed. Personally, I've spent more time watching the crowd than looking at the painting itself.

Mona Lisa is smaller than expected, 0.77 metres by 0.53 metres, and although a beautiful and enigmatic painting, it's not really artistic merit that has her so famous.      

In 1911 Mona Lisa was stolen off the wall of the Louvre. Three Italian handymen, employed to build glass cases for some of the museum's prized works, hid in a storeroom overnight and removed the painting Monday morning while the Louvre was closed. It wasn't until the next day the theft was discovered, but when the museum released a statement it made headline news around the world.    

Crowds gathered at police headquarters, wanted posters appeared on Parisian walls, the French border was closed and all departing ships and trains were searched. When the museum reopened a week later Franz Kafka was along the thousands of people who queued to view the empty spot on the wall.  

Conspiracy theories abounded; Pablo Picasso was among those bought in for questioning. By the time Mona Lisa was discovered two years later, when one of the thieves attempted to sell her to an Italian art dealer, she was the most famous painting in the world.    

I think Mona Lisa's history, including vandalism attempts, hanging in the bathroom of the king and the unanswered question of why da Vinci kept this painting with him, makes her all the more interesting. The estimated value of $770 million doesn't hurt either.

She's worthy of a visit the next time you're in Paris. 

TBT: First Thoughts from Overseas

Back in 1998, at the of 15, I headed overseas for the first time on a 3 week trip to Italy with a school group. Within a month or two of retuning home I had started my first part-time job and was saving for my next trip to Europe.

I think it is safe to say I loved it. 

But that certainly wasn't the impression given when I recently stumbled across my travel journal from that trip and started reading.

Hope you enjoy this peak into the mind of my 15 year old, not very impressed self with the first journal entry from my trip.   

 

5/4/98

It is now 1:00pm in Italy, where I am starting this diary. I am in the aeroplane at the Rome airport waiting from the plane to leave for Milan. I am sick of planes. We left Melbourne at about 11:30pm last night, as the plane was delayed an hour. We had tea at one in the morning, then breakfast at six. I slept in between for a couple hours.

At the stop over at Bangkok most people went to the toilet (there were only two female ones) and we wondered around for about ten minutes. I took 2 photos at the airport and when we were going through the metal detectors I went off. I wasn't really embarrassed which surprised me but the buzz wasn't as loud as some. I just had to stand on a box and a lady passed the thing over me. It turned out to be the camera.

We hopped back on the plane and when taking off we really noticed the smog. We had breakfast (again), morning tea and lunch and watched 3 movies. After both long flights my butt hurt from sitting so long. I only read one book and one magazine on the way over.

Nicole and Stephanie on the plane

My first impression of Rome was the green grass and farms. We hopped off the plane and onto a very crowded bus which took us to the terminal. I used my Italian money for the first time when I bought 'un Coca-Cola'. 1 guy at the counter was very nice and started talking to us - in Italian. Of course we couldn't understand him. Then we hopped on a smaller plane and here I am now. 

It is 9:00pm and I am about to go to sleep. From what I have seen of Milan it is a lot like Collingwood and similar places in Melbourne. The petrol prices are about $1.50 Australian for a litre, so everyone has small cards. They park them here, there and everywhere. Beautiful, decorated building fronts seem the norm but they had graffiti on them.

I was in a room with Stephanie and someone else but I swapped and got a double with Nicole. We have a clothes line strung up in our bedroom and tomorrow I need to call Mum. I have found a couple of notes from her in my suitcase.

Me in our Milan hotel room

They have trams in Milan. A lot of the shops pull down corrugated iron shutters when they are closed.

We had tea at a restaurant place. It was rock hard bread, water, pasta with tomato and veal schnitzel or something else with veal. Then we went to McDonalds, but I bought nothing.

Thank you for indulging this trip down memory lane. My 16 year old cousin Maddi is heading to Italy in a few weeks for a very similar trip and her first on her own. I might be feeling a touch nostalgic. :)

Have an incredible, amazing trip Maddi! I hope you get as addicted to traveling as it made me.