Paris Days 3, 4, and 5

Let's continue with our Paris trip, shall we?

Paris Day 3:

We picked up breakfast at a bakery (chocolate croissant and coffee eclair) and headed to Notre Dame Cathedral to begin. We walked around the Cathedral (short security line), but we weren't able to go up in the tower because of the smog.

From there we walked to the Louvre, and after checking our coats (free, tip not permitted) we headed towards the Mona Lisa. This is extremely croweded, but if you have patience you can move relatively quickly towards the front of the group. Most people who were visiting just wanted to take a picture and leave, which seemed a little like a waste to me. Not that I didn't take pictures.

This is what it's *really* like to see the Mona Lisa.

Just me and Mona, hanging out with some of our (pushy) friends.

From there, David wanted to see all of the works of art highlighted on the Louvre's map. This was interesting, but since the Louvre is a little hard to navigate and we got lost, I was quickly overwhelmed and exhausted. This place is freaking huge. Eventually we left without seeing all of the highlights. We found a cafe for a cheese plate (amazing, again), a croquette, and some wine. After that, I decided to take on a personal mission for finding macarons and a silk scarf. I found both after about 30 minutes. I'm not sure why it took so long to find a macaron that day. They were much easier to find later in the week.

We walked to the Musee Pompidou.

We took a break at 8pm because the top floor of the Pompidou has a great view of the Eiffel Tower. On the hour during the evening hours, the Eiffel Tower goes glittery for 5 minutes, and this was a great place to see it.

We were pretty tired and not that hungry, so on our way back home we found a South American restuarant for drinks and dessert (pisco sour and flan), and then headed home to bed.

Day 4:

We were finally able to get up at a normal time this day, so we went to a cafe for breakfast (cheese omelette, chocolate criossant). From there we got a metro day pass (metro was no longer free) and headed to the Musee D'Orsay. I really enjoyed this museum, although the second floor was closed due to a strike.

We walked to the Musee Rodin, and found an old church along the way to go in and look around. Musee Rodin is under construction, so there exhibits were a little limited, but still interesting.

For dinner that night we found a place that had both a vegetrain and non-vegetarian French menu, and we were happy to each get our own kinds of meals. David had setian borgionion, and I had duck. For dessert I had creme brulee, and he had what translates to "floating island", which was a big thing of meringue floating in some English cream. Delicious.

From there we took the metro to the Arc de Triomphe with intentions to go to the top and see the views of the city at night. We got there well ahead of closing time at 10:30, but didn't know they closed the entrance at 9:45. We would have to come back on a different day.

Paris Day 5:

Today was Versailles Day. We got pastries at a local bakery (chocolate cream bread and cheese roll) and then headed to a RER train to take us to Versailles.

Self-portrait in the Hall of Mirrors. As one does.

After touring the palace, we walked through the gardens to a central area. We had a small lunch (cheese sandwich) and then rented some bikes to ride around the artificial lake there. This was a great way to cover a lot of ground, although you couldn't actually ride the bikes in the Versailles palace gardens themselves.