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Published: June 21st 2017
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Louvre Courtyard
Louvre Courtyard Geo: 48.8566, 2.35097
We wandered back towards the intersection of Rue Dauphine & Rue de Buci for our breakfast this morning and had an excellent meal at Le Conti of omelettes, baguettes and croissants.
We then walked to the Louvre which only took around 15 minutes. We accessed the Louvre via Passage Richelieu, no queues at all. We had only allowed a couple of hours for the Louvre, mainly to see the main things – we saw the Venus de Milo, Victory of Samothrace and Mona Lisa (of course). We spent a bit of time generally wandering around the building and also had a good look at Napolean's Apartments. Would have liked to see the Medieval Louvre, but time was running short, so had to leave that for next time.
We worked out that by this point we had got all our money back on our Museum Passes, so as well as saving lots of time we were now also saving money. Highly recommend these passes, if you plan on going to lots of museums and monuments.
We went for a walk through the Tuileries into Place de la Concorde and on into L'Orangerie, again on the Museum Pass. We specifically wanted to see Monet's waterlillies
Arc de Triomphe
Arc de Triomphe here, which were spectacular. Had a bit of a look around, but our son was glazing over by then! We caught the Metro at Concorde up to Charles de Gaulle and climbed up the Arc de Triomphe (Museum Pass). Spent some time gazing at the wonderful views, but it was very wet and windy up there. Caught the Metro to Hotel de Ville and walked over the bridge to Ile de la Cite. It is amazing how easy it is to get around on the Metro and RER. I didn't use it last year as the weather was better and I walked everywhere, but this time we really used it a lot and it was so simple. My husband mislaid a carnet of tickets as they are so small, but we even managed buying more from a machine.
We returned to Esmeralda for crepes and a glass of wine for a late lunch and then joined the fast moving queue into Notre Dame. We would have liked to
Interior of Sainte Chappelle
Interior of Sainte Chappelle climb the towers (again on the Museum Pass, but unfortunately no queue skipping allowed with this one, but the queues were always massive - another thing for next time. After Notre Dame we went to Sainte Chappelle as I had always wanted to see this. As we arrived, they announced it was closing early in readiness for a concert that evening. When I mentioned that we had Museum Passes we were told we could go straight in. It was fantastic, very few people as it was closed to the general public and the stained glass was out of this world. Would love to see a concert there at some stage. We returned to our rooms to pack and then wandered onto Pont Neuf. We wanted to see the Eiffel Tower twinkling and had not been able to fit it in. We hoped our night cruise would be timed correctly, but unfortunately not. We still could see it quite well from Pont Neuf, even though it was in the distance.
We
Gargoyle on Notre Dame
Gargoyle on Notre Dame finished our day with New Year's Eve dinner at La Rose de France. We had a very enjoyable meal, although we all felt that Paris was very calm and quiet unlike New Year here at home in Melbourne. There didn't seem to be people hugging and kissing at midnight, it was much like any other evening but with much more expensive food. Maybe things were different along the Champs Elysees or at the Eiffel Tower, but certainly around that area things were very quiet indeed.
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