We took Rick Steves' advice and got in line at the Tabac stand under the Louvre to buy our tickets. While Chris stood in the long long line I explored the shopping and found a Swatch shop! I picked myself up an only available in Paris Swatch that I'm totally in love with!
When I returned to Chris I found him up at the counter so I waited outside. Soon he came out to inform me that they only took CASH (please take note Rick Steves). I ran to the ATM while he got back in line.
Finally, after what seemed like hours but was probably only 30 minutes we were the proud owners of the 4 day museum pass for Paris and we took of towards the entrance.
We saw some pretty amazing things at the Louvre. We gazed upon Winged Victory of Samothrace, Venus de Milo, and of course the Mona Lisa.
I could have spent our entire trip to Paris exploring the Louvre, but since we only had a few days and so much to see we followed the Rick Steves tour of the Louvre. Again, thanks Rick!
After leaving the Louvre we went to Notre Dame to begin Rick Steves' Historic Paris Walk. Notre Dame was beyond amazing. However, what really struck us both as odd were all of the glitzy blinking machines throughout the building where you could have your coin smushed into a collectible coin. Seemed a bit cheap to us. Oh, and then there were the tourist. Not the loud American tourists you hear about, but the loud tourists from everywhere else. There were signs everywhere, in every language, asking you to be quiet and respectful...oh and not take flash photos. So what did we see and here. Yep......ugh.
We then went to the other end of the park in front of Notre Dame and entered the Notre Dame Crypt Archaeologique. About all I can say about it is that it smelled like a kitty litter box.
Next on Rick's walk was the Memorial de la Deportation, a memorial to the French victims of the Nazi concentration camps. No camera's were allowed and for once everyone seemed to take note of that. A very moving memorial and a must visit if you're in Paris.
By this time we were into the 2nd part of Rick's walk and found ourselves at the Left Bank Booksellers. Sadly, by the time we got there they were all packing up. Oh, and there were a bunch of cops taping off an area on the river wall that was covered with what looked like dead chickens. We never found out what that was.
We wandered around for a while in the Latin Quarter and stopped in at one cafe for a happy hour beer. We thought about continuing on Rick's walk but by that point we were starving, tired and a bit snappy with each other so we decided to find a place for dinner. After reading about 30 menu boards claiming the best Prix Frie menus in the area we decided on Bistro 30' (at least that is what I wrote down as the name of the place, but Google has never heard of it). We had a wonderful meal and two pichet's of tasty wine. Happy Anniversary to us!
After dinner we stopped in at a wine shop and picked up a bottle of wine to take back to the room with us where we finished the night sipping wine and watching the France vs. Serbia football match, in French, in FRANCE! Fun times.
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