Paris, the City of Museums and Parks

Well.... it turns out that walking for 34.7 km the day before will actually slow you down the next day. Who Knew???

Today we had tickets to go to the Louvre. We booked them later in the morning thinking we could get there early, scout out the area, visit the Gardens and leisurely make our way in.

As it turned out, we slept in, still managed to get on our train early, got almost there before we realized we had left the coffee pot on, went all the way back, turned it off, then back on the metro with a brisk walk to the Louvre and we ended up 5 minutes late. Whew...

The Louvre is huge and confusing with 2153 different stair cases. We did the prototypical tourist thing and decided to head straight to the Mona Lisa. Get her out of the way early. We did the stand in line thing to get close, took our snap shots, and we were off to ping pong around that place trying to see as much as we could while hitting our personal highlights, such as the Venus De Milo and the Egyption mummies. Oh... and I was most excited to see, Winged Victory. For some reason, I find that statue of a headless winged angel so beautiful.

We did a lot of walking.... again... and the kids were dragging so while we were there for like 4 hours, there was still lots we didn't see. I want to go back again sometime just to spend more time admiring all the lesser know pieces of art at a more leisurely pace.

After that we ate some lunch and did a bit of souvenir shopping and then we got to relax in the Tuileries Garden which is just outside the Louvre. We finally got our outside pictures of the pyramid (the ones we didn't get because of our mad dash to get there in time) and then we decided to head for home.

One of the things on Jen's bucket list was to sit in the lawn of the park just south of the Eiffel Tower. That is the iconic place where to see people picnicking and laying down kissing with the tower in the background. So we jumped off the subway a couple of blocks away, grabbed a 6 pack of overpriced Macarons, and went to the park. It was everything Jen hoped for. Nothing more French than eating Macarons in the park by the Eiffel Tower.

We soaked in that moment, and then the rain came to gently nudge us into the direction of home. And so ends our time in Paris. We spent the rest of the night cleaning and packing so we could get up early to make our train to Rouen. All in all, Paris was great but we left a lot of things undone. So... I guess we will just have to come back.

Oh... and even though we were dragging a bit and sore, we finished the day with 19,185 steps (for those of you who are only here for the daily step counter 😛😉)

Ok. Off to bed to dream of baguettes... again. What is up with that???Read more