Thursday– Central and West Paris
The morning was wet, but breakfast was again at the Patisserie,
before walking up to Bastille market, unfortunately the market open at 9:00 and we were too early, A lot of the stalls were still getting ready.
We then walk back down Rue de Ravoli again where St Pauls was open.
This walk passed the Tour Saint-Jacques. This is in the heart of the central Paris is used as a marker.
But the target is the Louvre.
We walk in the Louvre Area from the east gate.
The Louvre is an immense complex building.
We arrive at 09:00 in the morning just as it had open at the queue was already 30 Minutes long. But this gave us time to look up and admire the building.
The Glass Pyramid was being cleaned with a robot cleaner. Once in we got to see the grand hall at the entrance.
First Target was to get in and then find the Mona Lisa of cause.
On trying to find the Mona Lisa we passed through the old building exhibitions.
And decided to go back to them. Once we found the Mona Lisa, we were both disappointed. It was behind a big Glass Panel and a crowd in front so you couldn’t get close to it.
So we moved away from it an had to decide what we wanted to see. Old French furniture and classical statues, basically the North Wing. So off we went. The furniture was beautiful, at showed the same sort of fine detail as we had seen in the English furniture.
The classical Statue thou, the English have some catching up to do. The statues were from BC Greek stuff to modern 1950 stuff and all were very high quality. It was difficult to not bounce from one to another.
But it was the Ceilings that amazed me, they were artworks on their own.
At about 1:00 in the afternoon we decide it was time to leave otherwise we were going to spend all day here and we want to see more of Paris. We found the Other Pyramid in the mall.
Once we got out we end up in the rain at Tuilleries garden, this park has it all, gardens, play area’s seats, fountains, trees that have been groomer beautifully and statues scattered through it.
And at the other end is the Musee de l’Orangerie.
We quick got in and explored this little Museum. This is where Monet’s Waterlily Paintings are shown along we some other major art works. The Waterlily paintings, I had seen these before but they were so nice to see again. It is also so another beautiful building.
When we came out it was raining hard, so it was quick walk to the "Hotel of the Invalids" and the Army Museum. We saw the old French Armory. They had a lot more than the British museums have.
Then we decided to go into the Cathedral to see Napoleon’s tomb, Wow, what a tomb. This is major monument to a great empire. He is still regarded highly by the French. The Marble Coffin was very large. And it is well light and honored. The Soldiers at the site request No photos of them for security reasons.
Oh and Josephine was also their in a large Marble tomb.
Once we finish there it was about 3 O’clock in the afternoon, so we decided to head for the boat trip down the walk down river Seine. The trip started at the river Eiffel Tower, and the rain stopped just as we waiting in the queue. At 3:45 the boat trip start, it was a 1 hour cruise down the river and around the islands before returning back. The major issue I had was the number of tourist standing up to take there photo’s. if everyone sat down, we would have seen it all. But a boat with 300 tourist on board, that message just didn’t get through.
Paris is a Majestic City with great old buildings. And the cruise was great. End the end of the cruise we had some food at the tower fete, Hot Spanish donuts in the rain were perfectly timed.
From there we went for walk back down the river to Pont Nuff at the top of the islands and caught our first Metro back to La Bastille. Getting back to the Hotel about 6 O’Clock in the evening. So this time we decided to go to a local bistro that the hotel recommended, this was to become a regular for us.
Jennifer having a chocolate sponge cake with custard and I had a Crepe with Lemon. This was far better than the previous night.
We got back at about 9 in the evening and crash to sleep very quickly.
