July 3rd, 2011
I woke up, happy to see that I wasn’t in a pool of blood, and waited for Emily to finish getting ready before getting ready myself. Once in the bathroom, I looked in the mirror, decided my hair was fine and threw on my clothes.
The plan for today was to go to Notre Dame, the Louvre, get some pictures at the Moulin Rouge and Sacré Coeur, then go to Père Lachaise cemetery before hitting the Eiffel tower.
A packed day, sure…
We got to Notre Dame, and joined the line to go inside. There was a service going on, and I always find it kind of were that they allow people to go around taking photos and filming when that’s happening. It’s also jarring to see little shops at the side of the church.
We then left with the aim of joining the queue to go up the towers. The queue stretched the length of the cathedral and eventually, we decided against it.
We then walked across the river and visited Shakespeare & Co. Bookshop, which was pretty cool. Emily played some piano before we left.
From there we headed to Saint Michel metro, stopping briefly to take pictures of the fountain, before going to The Louvre.
We made our way to the pyramid, only to be met with a queue that stretched from the pyramid entrance, through an arch, into the other courtyard, through another arch, and put onto rue de Rivoli. There was no way we were joining it, so I went onto my phone to see if there was another entrance.
A couple minutes later, we had found it. Through the shopping mall.
Once we found they entrance to that, we strolled into the museum, no line, nothing. Ending up under the pyramid like everyone in the massive queue above us.
It was a free day at they museum (hence the massive queue), so we just made our way to the Mona Lisa (obv), grabbing a drink and a snack en route.
After seeing Lisa, we continued down the Grand Gallery. Then went to find the food court for the food and free WiFi.
After food, we went to check out the Egyptian stuff, seeing the medieval part of the Louvre too.
My memory card became full mid-egypt, 4gb/845 pictures. I swapped it out with my video camera card, as I’ve barely taken anything on that the entire trip.
We exited the Louvre through the pyramid. The queue was still going on as far as they eye could see, and we headed for the big red windmill.
The metro was crazy crowded, so after some photos of the mill, we walked down to Sacré Coeur.
It was busy, but not too bad. The string guys did try and force their stringy ways on me, (or Emily) which was a nice change.
We then tried to go to Père Lachaise, but we arrived just as it closed. Who knew cemeteries closed?
We walked until we found a metro, which ended up being Voltaire and got off at Trocadero, where we sat for a while.
We left at around 8, and walked along they river toward a metro stop. Getting the metro to étoile and then to joinville le pont. Emily was hungry, so we went in search of somewhere that would serve food.
There were several restaurants on they street we walked down, none of them open. Which was useful. Eventually we found a vietnamese place or something and she got some takeaway.
Back at the hotel, I put the tv on and we watched Finding Nemo in French, followed by what it turned out a CSI marathon – also in french.
Needing to be up at 5am, it was perhaps silly of us to stay up talking about the inside and outs of tv and film…
Oh well.