We slept a little later than usual (that’s usual for this trip, not usual for me), then we headed over to one of Paris’s premier art Museum’s the Musée d’Orsay. On our walk to the Metro we stopped at a fruit stand and a bakery for breakfast. After that I decided I would try to eat at least one croissant a day.
The Musée d’Orsay was awesome. It’s an enormous converted train station with a huge glass roof. I had not heard of it (or if I had, I had forgotten, I’m bad with names, especially those from romantic languages). Elysia thought the art there would be something more manageable in a short time then the Louvre’s so we decided to go there before Elysia had to go home.
Everything was in French so we all decided to get audio tours and split up. There was no way we were going to have time too look at everything (and we didn’t), and we figured that way we could each see the things we were most interested in. I saw a lot of great stuff I’m not going to try to enumerate it. I left wishing we had more time, but that was true about everywhere we went in Paris.
After Musée d’Orsay we met a family friend of Elysia’s, Nathalie. She’s lived in Paris for a long time and we had lunch with her at a crêpery that specialized in a style of crepe from a region of France called Brittany. The crêpes were delicious. We all had a savory crepe and we all got dessert crepes which we shared. During the meal we drank a couple different ciders (traditional to drink while eating crepes) from Brittany that were also delicious.
After lunch and a quick stop at our hotel, we got back on the Metro and headed to the the Arc De Triumph. It is a very impressive monument. It was strange to think of the Nazi’s marching through it 70 years ago. While we were there a wedding party in a horse drawn carriage with a whole bunch of cars following it went around the huge roundabout that surrounds the arch. Everyone in cars was hanging out the windows, had music turned up and dancing; it looked like a good time. After that we did a little “promenading” on the Avenue des Campes Elyseés.
Then we took the Metro back towards Seine and walked up to a square that Nathalie had recommended we take a look at in the area. We also tracked down a grocery store and bakery. We bought food for a picnic. During our bike and boat tour we had seen thousands of people sitting by the Seine eating and drinking and we figured that looked like a good time.
Before dinner we stopped for a look inside of Cathédrale Notre-Dame de Paris. It was beautiful inside. We got to listen to some singing. It had also gotten hot that day, but inside the cathedral it was cool and peaceful.
The temperature was perfect for the picnic, the food and wine was delicious. We just sat by the Seine for a few hours people watching, enjoying the nice weather and watching the sun set.
After that we walked down to the Musée de Louvre. We had seen it for a few minutes on our bike tour, but we all thought it deserved another look at night. Plus the walk along the Seines to the Louver seemed like a nice length considering the energy we had left, which was fading fast. After that we walked though the park next to it, the Jardin Des Tuileries, where we took the Metro back to our hotel.
We were all tired, and Elysia had to wake up early the next morning to fly home so we all went straight to bed.