Adventures in Paris (days 1-3)

---

We made it to Paris at lunch time on Monday, and had until Saturday when we left for Nice, so we decided to get started on sightseeing right away! We made it to our hostel to drop of our bags, then caught the Metro to the Louvre. The Louvre was enormous,-so much to see, and we definately didn't see it all. Since neither of us are art buffs we kind of did a drive-through version of the Louvre. Saw the main sights, (the Mona Lisa from a bit of a distance, behind about 4 or more layers of glass), and wandered around a bit. We left as the Louvre was closing which was after about 3 or so hours, but we had done enough by then. I am sure that all the works in there deserve much more time than we gave them, but when you don't really know what you are looking at, there is only so much that you can do in one day! After we left the Louvre we went outside the check out the controversial pyramids, (love them or hate them?). I actually liked the big pyramid, the placement was kind of weird, but I liked the contradiction between new and old. However, there are actually 5 pyramids, one large one and four smaller ones (the builder only told the city that he was going to build one, and then surprised them with a few more =P), and I thought that the smaller ones didn't add anything by being there.

In the evening we went to see the eiffel tower all lit up, it really was beautiful. The champ de mars, (grassy fields in front of the tower), were full of people laying out on blankets with wine or food, taking in the sights. It was neat. Front 10pm onwards, every hour the tower puts on a show by lighting up even more and having the effect of looking all sparkly.

The next day we went on another of those free walking tours. We saw the Notre Dame, fountain de St. Michel, le Neuf Pont, the Louvre, the Grande and Petite palace, the arc de triumph, le jardins de tuileries, and a lot more stuff that I am forgetting. The free tours are an awesome way to see the city!
After the tour we went up the Arc de triumph as we were told that this is the best view of Paris. The view was really good, but after you have seen so many panoramas of different cities they all start to look similar.

Our third day was a bit of an adventure! We made it to the eiffel tower just after 9am, when it opens to go up it. There was already a fairly big line to take the elevator the whole way up, but since we wanted to take the stairs up the first 2 flights, there was no line at all. That was really nice, because we had checked it out before and the lines are all over an hour long or so. We made it to the 2nd level by stairs, but had to take the elevator to the top as that is the only way. The view was good, but we both went up more to have gone up the eiffel tower than for the view. Also, as someone pointed out to us, the most distinct landmark of the Paris skyline is the eiffel tower, and when you are ON the eiffel tower... you don't see that. Still was very cool! I like the story how years ago they were thinking about tearing down the eiffel tower, but it ended up being a good place for radio signals, and took in tourism. Some con man took over this idea and posing as some dignified person, held an auction and SOLD the eiffel tower for scrap metal! (I think he sold it for 20 million euros). The guy that he sold it to was so ashamed of being conned that he never told anyone, and the guy didn't get caught until he tried to sell it AGAIN, but the bidders were a bit smarter this time, and the actual con didn't get caught until years later when he was found in the states. Regardless, he sold the eiffel tower for scrap metal. Hah!

After that we decided to go to the train station in the morning to get our tickets for eurodisney (to avoid the lines there), and make reservations for the train to Nice. We bought our disneyland tickets and then made the reservation. I guess we were still thinking about eurodisney because we made our reservation to Nice for 'tomorrow' instead of for Saturday. We spent a few hours later that afternoon sorting it out after I randomly realized that we had done the wrong thing.

In the afternoon we went first to see the Notre Dame. We didn't go in, just checked it out from outside. The architecture really does stand out, it looks so rough and cold, as opposed to how smooth most other cathedrals look. We saw the gargoyles for a distance, but didn't hear then gargling.
We did a bit of souvenier shopping around here, then headed off to see Napoleons tomb at Invalide. The tomb is really huge, everything we hear about Napoleon is how full was so full of himself and this just continued to confirm it. We headed back to the hostel for dinner, but on the way there was when I realised we made reservations for the wrong day so went to fix that. In the evening we packed up a bit and got some sleep... had to have energy for eurodisney! wooot =)

---