05/05/2014

Today was 21C and a slight breeze, beautiful in other words.  We started with a quick wader through parts of the Marais district on our way to Sainte-Chapelle chapel.  Sainte-Chapelle is known for it's lovely stained glass windows each telling a story.  They were very beautiful but some were covered by restoration work, making the whole room dusty.  Shame

Saint Chapelle sold a combined ticket with the Conciergerie, so we went there as an unplanned trip.  The Conciergerie dates back to approx the 10th century and was used as a residence for royalty before being turned into a prison.  Marie Antoinette was kept here for several months prior to her execution by guillotine. The architecture again was amazing and Tracy was particularly taken by the ceiling.

From here we walked to The Louvre.  The queues were again quite long, but we had heard you could go in side entrances and using 'Rick Steves Paris' book we found one of those.  The main advantage was a much shorter queue to get through the security screening.  You then went to the same spot to buy tickets, but again Rick suggested using the automated ticket machines instead of speaking to a person.  We found this queue quite a bit shorter again.  If you ever go to Europe Rick Steve has an invaluable website - and obviously books, as well as downloadable audio tours.  Anyway we spent around 3 hours in The Louvre, seeing all the main attractions such as the Mona Lisa, Venus De Milo, some Michaelangelo sculptures, Raphael paintings etc.  The crowds were of course nuts, especially around the Mona Lisa, but we found some floors and exhibits which were quite empty.  We saw quite a few Egyptian Antiquities as well, but 3 hours was enough for us even though you could spend 3 days if you wanted to study everything.  



From The Louvre we headed towards the Champs Elysée, stopping for lunch at a very nice little cafe on the way - and were surprised that it was 2:45pm! After lunch and a wine we kept heading towards the Arc De Triomphe.  It was being renovated which was a bit of a shame, but we were still able to climb to the top (only 284 stairs).  The renovations stopped us from going all the way around the top but we still got good views back down the Champs Elysée and of the Eiffel Tower and Sacre Coeur


We both had sore feet so decided to head home and have a night in, though it was about 7:30 by the time we got home.

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