What a day

---

Bon soir mes amies! It's about a quarter after 9 and we are just getting back from dinner and bunking down for the night. We have the Last Samuri in French its great. So we started off the morning with a quick metro ride down to the Musee du Louvre. What a magnificant place. Our metro let us out right inside the musee and we found a little gift shop that sold tickets. (which means we missed the huge lines at the ticket counter.) We made our way up to the Denon gallery. As we ascended the stairs we came first upon, assorted greek/roman sulptures, then we found Winged Victory of Samothrace or as she is also know as the Goddess Nike. Ascending even more stairs 😊 we came upon even more greek/roman statues and paintings by di Vinci, Bottecilli, and many others.

In this room was many many many paintings for saints, baby Jesus, Mary, Jesus Curcified... Quite the religous theme going on. Then we hit the room with the painting du jour... The Mona Lisa. 😱 It was just amazing walking into that room and seeing her there waiting for us. A bit of a crowd but by far nothing like you here or what would be around during peak tourist season. And surprisinly Mona Lisa is bigger than either of us thought she would be. On the oppisite wall was the massive Wedding Feast at Cana by Veronese.

We had a quick lunch and then wandered outside and was greated by such a lavish court yard, with statues every where, to the left and right of us on the breeze way.

Crossing the street from the Musee du Louvre we headed down Rue de Rivoli to Place des Pyramides where we came across the golden statue of Jeanne d'Arc (Joan of Arc). Such a beautiful statue and she just happens to be a median. From this point we were afforded our first view of the Tour Eiffel.

As we left Rue des Pyrimades we thought we would take a glimpse of the Siene before heading over to Notre Dame. This opened up the possibility of taking a river boat tour. Or well really a Boat Bus. This took up down to what we thought was the Arc de Triopmhe (ended up being farther off than we thought.) But we did get to see the Grand Palace up close. Back on the boat we headed to the Tour Eiffel. This was well worth the fee, the ticket was for the day which meant we could get on and off as much as we wanted. Also just a great way to see all that is around the river. Friendly staff, boats are covered but very comfortable, lots of seating and reasonable fees, again well worth the money. Nice to just sit and relax for a bit, made for a calming ride through part of Paris.

The Tour Eiffel is HUGE!! Which yes is an understatement but it had to be said. And word of advise don't go in the heavy tourist season. We stood a good hour and a half just for tickets. But enough about lines. We got tickets to the Sommet (very top) and rode two lifts up.
The view from the middle or 2nd stage was wonderful, the view from the top was amazing. Such a joy to walk around and take in all of Paris. While standing in line for tickets a group of young adults (early 20's late teens) showed up in grey smocks (looked like grey doctor coats) they all had numbers on their sleves and a piece of paper on their back. After a while they formed up in to a conga line, started singing and marching around in the center of the plaza. Have no clue what they were singing, but they were entertaining. Also across from the Tour Eiffel was a carosel for the kids, cotton candy, popcorn, crepes, postcards... This was also the first place that we ran into the pushy pan handlers. Woman walked up and asked if we spoke English. We said yes and she help up a sign telling us she was from Bosnia and at the bottom asking if we had 1 or 2 euro we could spare. I told her we had no money, no change. She then did the universal sign for 'you got a smoke' to which we both relied no.

From the Tour Eiffel we made our way back to the river boat and took it on its full run up and around Notre Dame. (by this time the sun had set). Beautiful church which we are going to see later on. Boat ride was nice and relaxing and got us off our feet for a while. We enjoyed watching all the kids play with the seats and the mothers telling them the tour lady was coming and would be upset with them. Made our way back to the Louvre and to the metro. 2 Metros later and we got back to the hotel long enough to drop the camera off, get rid of any thing we no longer needed and headed to dinner.

We ate at another local resturant called the hippopatumus. (if the spelling is wrong its cause I'm tired and this program doesn't have spell check) A very good steak house, we did not opt for the Steak TarTar however. (it was an option) We both went with the Steak Hippo (no not real Hippo, I think), this was with green beans and a vegetable melody of some sort (and as Mom puts it Damn Good). We each had a glass of wine with dinner and bad for us on not getting the name of it. (It was red) Followed with cafe avec au lait. Which was by far the best coffee I have had here.

There's more but our brains are a bit fried right now. We are having a great time and this is just a wonderful time. We will go more into detail when we get back. Also please note we have NOT GOTTEN RAN OVER YET. The crossing of streets here is an art we are prefecting by the hour. We learned the hard way also that buses have their own lane.

---

Comments

[kITTY]

LOVE it
WOW, what a story! Sounds like lots of fun and I love the photos! Talked to a friend of mine in MI and she's going there in 2 weeks. It must be the season! Have fun and keep blogging! XOXOX, Kitty

[Kitty]

Louvre
I would think the Louvre would be one full day in itself.