Paris, France - Days 1 & 2

We spent four days in Paris, France. It was, for the most part, a wonderful trip. Here's what we did April 28th and 29th.

After getting settled in our hotel, the Hotel Elysses Union (which was very nice), we headed for the Metro. The subway is the only way to get around Paris, although it can be a bit confusing. On the way there we saw the Arc de Triomphe.

Our first stop was the Musee Rodin, home to the sculptures of Auguste Rodin. One of his most famous sculptures, The Thinker, was found in the gardens of the museum.
The museum's gardens were beautiful. I am not a big rose fan, but they were growing some of the most big, beautiful roses I have ever seen. Here's just one example.
Inside, we saw another of Rodin's more famous works, The Kiss.
Here's Kimberly and Scott in front of a giant door in the courtyard.
Next we walked across the street to Les Invalides: Napoleon's Tomb and Military Museum. I didn't go in. I wasn't really interested, so I sat on a bench in the courtyard. Robert and the kids didn't stay in there very long. They went and saw Napoleon's tomb, which they said was very grand, and then left. Scott took some pictures with my camera, but it doesn't work very well inside dark places. I meant to get a picture from Kimberly, but I forgot.

After that museum, we went on to another museum! (FYI, three museums in one day is too many.) This one was the Musee d'Orsay. We waited over an hour to get in, although we already had tickets. The Orsay is a wonderful museum filled with works by painters such as Monet, Manet, Renoir, Degas, Cezanne, and Van Gogh. It's also a very large museum, and trying to see all of it about killed us! It would have been better to have just gone to the Orsay one day, but when you're only in Paris for 4 days, and you discover right before you go that all of the museums will be closed on May 1st, you do what you have to do!

One of the things I loved about Paris was that we would be walking down a street, turn a corner, and have a view like this. The Eiffel Tower, which is truly beautiful, would suddenly be right in front of us! I never got tired of looking at it.
The next morning, was Eiffel Tower day. We walked first to the Trocadero. I'm not even sure what the Trocadero is, but it's where you go to get great pictures of the Eiffel Tower! Robert and I even had Kimberly take our picture!
And here I am with the kids. We didn't hang around the Trocadero as long as we would have liked. We had to leave to get away from the guys who kept bothering us with their tacky Paris souvenirs!
We waited in line about an hour to catch the elevator to the top of the Eiffel Tower. Sadly, the day was overcast, so our pictures aren't very exciting. But here's a picture of the Seine River.
After the Eiffel Tower, we headed to Notre Dame. We walked inside, and while the stained glass windows were beautiful, we thought the inside of Milan's Duomo was prettier. Scott wanted to climb to the top walkway area they have, but the lines were very long and they were only letting in groups of 20 every 10 minutes. He didn't want to wait that long. I was disappointed I didn't see Quasimodo...
After a late lunch and some touristy shopping, it was on to the Louvre. Here's the famous pyramid.
And here's the reason many people go to the Louvre - the Mona Lisa. I had to elbow my way to the front of a large group of people to get this picture! The Louvre is the only museum (with paintings) I've been to over here that allows pictures. The Louvre is a massive museum. We didn't try to see it all, we just picked out what was important to us.
Here's one last picture to make you jealous - this is what we saw every time we stepped out of our hotel.