Visiting Jim Morrison and a trip to the Arc de Triumph

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We planned to have a fairly easy day today. Our apartment is only a block from Pere La Chaise cemetery, where numerous famous people are buried. When we left the apartment, we made a quick side trip to check it out.

The graves and tombs in the cemetery are very tightly packed. There are also some amazing carvings and ornamentation on the tombs, and I was snapping lots of photos. With many of the graves going back hundreds of years, the graveyard has a very spooky and mysterious feel to it, which I think captured Joshua and Benjamin's imagination.

Maps in various places point out where the graves of the most well known people are, and as we were fairly close to the grave of Jim Morrison, lead singer for the Doors, we made our way over there. Even at this time in the morning, there were many tour groups going through the cemetery and so it was fairly easy to find well known graves, it you had the general idea of where they were as there were crowds of people around them.

Jim Morrison's grave is set back and awkwardly placed behind a tomb so you can't really see it face on. There were also lots of people try to see it, so we didn't stay very long before returning to the main street.

On the main road, there was a big outdoor antique market going on. It was really fun to see what they had, with many interesting Art Deco pieces and even items like nuclear war warning signs from the former Soviet Union. If we were weren't travelling for another 6 weeks, it would be very tempting to pick up some things.

After the market we took the metro to Charles De Gaulle station and exited to see the Arc de Triumph right in front of us. There was a large line up for the elevator up to the top of the monument, but we opted instead just to explore it from street level.

Next we walked down the Champ Elysees for a bit, before turning into a “Quick” (the French equivalent of McDonald's) for some lunch. With rain beginning to fall, we wanted to head down towards the Seine to get a view from there.

After a short walk, the buildings cleared and we crossed the street to the banks of the river, with the Eiffel tower looming iconically on the far bank. After a few requisite shots of our travelling stuffed penguin mascot, we followed the river down towards the Place de la Concorde.

On the walk, we were a stopped by man who appeared to have just found a gold ring and asked us if we had dropped it. We said no and he offer it to Evy. Having seen so many scams the world over, she said no. It turns out this is a well known tourist scam (the scammer then asks for some money in compensation for the “gift”) and we had it pulled on us later again in the visit as well as seeing it done to other people.

Near the Place de la Concorde, we found a Decathlon sporting store (Europe's version of Mountain Equipment Co-op) and spend some time doing window shopping. Some neat stuff, but again, we have no room for things.

Back at the apartment, we attempted to call our family friend Barbara in England. Despite a poor connection, we were able to tell her when we would be coming to England and made plans to call when we got there. From the looks of things, our best option there will be to rent a car.

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