5/9/2014 - Paris France

Friday, May 9, 2014

I am starting to see a pattern here.  We stayed up late last night and slept in again.  I think we finally made it out the door around 11:30 or so in the morning.  We walked a couple blocks down the road to a tower that used to be a church but the church was torn down during the revolution and all that remains is the tower.  There is a really pretty city park built around it.

Then we crossed the river over towards Notre Dame and stopped by Bertie’s cupcakery to get our daily cupcake.  After savoring our cupcakes, we made our way around the corner to a shop that we had noticed the other day that had really good sandwiches.  We bought a couple Italian Poulet sandwiches and headed back across the river to the park we had been at earlier.  We found a nice bench in the sun and enjoyed our sandwiches in the park.

We then walked the couple blocks back to our apartment.  On the way back we found a small gelato shop and enjoyed some gelato as we finished our walk back to the apartment.  Once back in the apartment we decided to rest a bit and have a nap (old people training).  After our nap we decided we would visit the Louvre in the evening when it is apparently less busy. 

We left the apartment around 7 p.m. and walked the couple blocks down the road to the Louvre entrance.  There are two ways to enter the Louvre, through the pyramid in the square or underground through the shopping mall under the Louvre.  In Rick Steves’ book he said the lines are generally much shorter if you enter through the mall, so we gave it a shot. 

Wow, we were surprised to find no line at all at the ticket booth.  So we got our tickets and headed in.  We followed the approximately 2 hour tour of the main attractions that Rick Steves has in his book.  Our Deux Chevaux car driver the other night had told us that if you spent 1 minute in front of every piece of art in the Louvre and you spent 24 hours a day doing it, it would take you three months to see everything.  I can believe it.  The place is gigantic.

After our tour we walked toward the pont neuf bridge to meet up with Jody and Guy to have some dinner or drinks together.  I also wanted to see the light show at the Eiffel Tower, so after we met up with Jody and Guy we took the Metro across town to the Trocadero Plaza.  After getting some pictures and video of the light show, we came back to our district near the apartment to get something to eat.  We had some pizza, salad, pasta, and of course wine.

By the time we got back to the apartment and in bed it was after midnight again.  I don’t think there has been a single night where we have gotten to bed before midnight, except for maybe the first day we got here when we climbed in bed before it even got dark.