Day seven: Monday, March 9, 2015

Bonjour,
     Today was another tourist packed day. We started the day at the Notre Dame. What an ornate cathedral. This cathedral has been around since the 11th century and has been a work in progress since the 18th century. It was made popular by Victor Hugo's book, The Hunchback of Notre Dame. I am always impressed by the detail that goes into these places. The talent of the artists is top notch. Certainly nothing I would be able to acomplish. It is another Gothic style cathedral but different from Westminster in that there were very few tombs and effigies. There is a crypt to explore, but it was closed today.
    After touring the cathedral, we stopped for a snack at a corner café and indulged in some macaroons. I had raspberry and Alan had pistachio. Sooo good!
    We decided to take a guided hop-on hop-off bus tour of the city. It would have been cheaper to take the metro everywhere but we wouldn't have been able to see this beautiful city and wouldn't have gotten the history lessons that I do enjoy. We passed by all the must see sites but only had time to explore a few.
   We traveled up the Champs-Elysées to the Arc de Triomphe. The Champs-Elysées is the main boulevard in Paris and considered one of the most beautiful streets in the world. I would have to agree, however we didn't get the full effect since there weren't any blossoms or leaves on the trees. We toured the Arc de Triomphe and went to the top. From the top we were able to see down the Champs-Elysées to the Louvre.
   We walked up the Champs-Elysées to window shop at stores I could never afford. Still nice to look. We had lunch at a café overlooking the Arc de Triomphe. It wasn't that cold so we sat outside and watched people go by as we ate. The most entertaining person was the café  hostess. As people would walk up she would entice them to have a seat without being pushy or overbearing. She was good at her job. We changed it up and had pizza and salad for lunch. Again, very good. Much better than most pizza at home.
   We boarded the tour bus and traveled to the Eiffel Tower.  Today we went to the top! I've been listening to a lot of the Rick Steves audio downloads prior to coming to Europe. At the time the Eiffel Tower was built, the Parisians hated it and saw it as an eyesore. It was supposed to be torn down 20 years after it was built but Eiffel started using it as a weather and radio tower to prevent its destruction. Thanks to him we were able to enjoy breathtaking views of the city. We did the tourist thing again and enjoyed a sip of champagne on top of the Tower while enjoying the views. Very romantic.
   We continued with our bus tour. One of the stops was the grand opera house, the Palais Garnier. It is the opera house that inspired The Phantom of the Opera.  We saw a scale model of the opera house at the Musée d ' Orsay. Unfortunately it was closed unexpectedly and we were not able to see the opulence described to us.
   We concluded our bus tour and decided to walk the Latin Quarter. When I first saw signs for it, images of Cuba and Mexico came to mind but I was wrong. It houses one of the universities in Paris. It is coined the Latin Quarter because in the early years all the students spoke Latin, the language of the educated. We stopped at a chocolatier and indulged. Around here, the french stop at a bakery, or boulangerie, on the way home from work to get their baguette for dinner. We started to see more and more locals with bread from a specific shop, so we followed. Since we were further from all of the tourist sites, I had to start using more french as less people spoke english.  We found the boulangerie and ordered crissounts and apple tarts. The taste buds were happy. I'm running out of wonderful adjectives to describe the food. It is all just sooo good!
   We made it back to the hotel and turned our night into laundry night. Finishing our first week here, we were running out of clean clothes. Not much of a difference between american and french laundry facilities.
    Tomorrow's agenda will be visiting Château Versailles.

Au revoir (goodbye)

The Notre Dame. The outside is more ornate than the inside. Each arch on the first level had pictographs carved into the stone. The center one is my favorite. It is Jesus sitting with his arms stretched out and everyone kneeling before him. 

The detail work in the stained glass was amazing. This was only one of the many stained glass windows. Each window has a story to tell.  

The Arc de Triomphe.  There is a smaller version of this monument in front of the Louvre. It was comissioned by Napoleon. Once it was finished he felt that it was not big enough and had the larger one built, but it needed to be in a straight line from the smaller one. 

View of the traffic circle from the top of rh e Arc de Triomphe.  Notice there are no lanes. There is some sort of system that prevents accidents but it all looks haphazard to me. Look at the smart car. To me it looks like a little matchbox toy compared to the other cars. 

View of the Eiffel Tower from the top of the Arc de Triomphe.  It was a little cloudy today so the view wasn't as good as it could have been. 

The Eiffel Tower.  

View from the top of the Eiffel Tower looking straight down. We had the option to only go to the second floor, but we chose to go all the way up! Since it was cloudy, we couldn't see as far, but we still had stunning views!

Us at the top! Surprisingly,  it was not windy up there. 

Cheers!

Enjoying his pistachio macaroon. I caught  him mid bite - he wasn't expecting the photo. These little things are tiny but packed with tons of confectionery goodness!