So we woke up pretty early and hit the hotel buffet breakfast before heading out to the Louvre, I'm having trouble remembering where Mike and Kim went in the morning...Our plan was to just go and walk around, take it all in. We were not set on seeing much as it was Sunday and we heard there would be huge crowds. We bought the 'museum pass' that allows for you to skip most lines hoping that would help.
Here are the Girls at the I.M. Pei pyramid in the main square of the Louvre. (and the location of the final scene of the DaVinci Code). Not as impressive as I would've hoped. Weather has made it a bit dull; it looked a bit dated and dirty. On the upside the museum pass we bought turned out to be huge. There was a massive line but we just sashayed right in and walked right up to the Mona Lisa. Best money we ever spent.
As we thought, Miss Mona wasn't as impressive as you might think, still good to see here tho. I think there are only 17 DaVinci paintings in existence and the Madonna on the Rocks is just 50 feet away, but no one seemed to care about that one. Mona was also overrun with pushy Chinese tourists, a harbinger of things to come.
Any here is Maggie between the caryatids (surely stolen from Greece like the Brits)
And here's my real Aphrodite in front of some old stone one.
And big Ben heading up the ceremonial stair in the main atrium.
There were creepy clowns that came up and worked us for a euro. When the African trinket vendors saw the clown one of them came and ripped his wig off and swatted at his nose. Which prompted Ben to say one of the best quotes of the trip, "I'd pay 10 euro to see a clown fight" The clowns were chased off but sadly no real clown fights happened.
The happy Griswalds.
We met Mike and Kim and set off for the Tower Eiffel as the French say, walking from the Louvre. We stopped at a little bistro for some lunch and chocolate cake. Finn devoured the cake (sitting in a cream sauce) and his ravioli, he ended up with a stomach ache. It was really the only thing that didn't sit well with him on the whole trip, what a difference from the days when we would pack an entire suitcase of food just for him. He's really doing great getting over his allergies.
And we made it. The grounds weren't that crowded, but the tower itself was packed. The tower is impressive, in part due to its surroundings being so consistent. So much stone and heavy building throughout Paris, the lightness of the tower is very beautiful.
This guy. And others like him. Selling selfie sticks. Yuck.
Yup, that's the Eiffel Tower up there.
Good stuff.
So Molly and I dropped off some weary kids and went back to walk the interior of Notre Dame Cathedral. We arrived as Mass had begun, the organ was impressive, as was the interior. Molly lit a candle for Joan of Arc, burned alive at 20-something for being a heretic. She was only redeemed in the last century or so.
After Notre Dame we went looking for some of the old Metro station entries. They are so awesome, reminded me of the architect Charles Macintosh. Molly is standing at attention for some unknown reason. This station was next to an area where only birds and bird related paraphernalia is sold one day a week on the street. Bizarre.
We returned to the hotel to meet Kim and Mike and go out to dinner, we went kid free as indicated by this sign above. I left 50 euro with the kids and had them go find their own Parisian cuisine, I think they ended up with 4 formaggio pizza that was not well reviewed by the Conner clan.
We cruised around and found drinks and dinner...
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