Today would be another warm and sunny day, and perhaps the busiest one so far!
To get an early start, we had breakfast in the room after buying groceries the day before. In addition to saving a bit of money, not eating in Paris restaurants, which is typically a leisurely experience, can save a lot of time.
In the morning, we decided to split up. Nadine and her sister went shopping with the kids while Tsiry and I visited the Musée du Louvre. Nadine may add her own post about her shopping experience with the kids, but the next series of photos are from my trip to the Louvre.
The museum is essentially three large wings of an old building with a modern glass pyramid in the centre where you enter into an underground area that joins the three wings.
Below are some photos of some exhibits and the interior architecture of the museum buildings.
Of course, what visit to the Louvre would be complete without seeing the Mona Lisa? As expected, there was a large crowd to get through to make it up front.
It’s not a large painting.
Some of the paintings on display were huge!
This image is looking out over the grounds from one of the upper floors.
In the mid-afternoon, we all met up for lunch. Tsiry called the ladies to find out where they were, and we hopped on the metro to meet them for lunch. Here’s the funny part (or not so funny). After getting out at the instructed metro stop, we proceeded to walk to the address given (Nadine had looked out the door to get the address of the building they were in). However, she read us the number across the street, thinking it would be close. Unfortunately, we learned that unlike back home in Canada, address numbers are not all that logical in Paris. While they still follow the practise of even on one side of the street and odd on the other, the numbers on one side of the street are not necessarily anywhere close to the numbers on the opposite side! So, we ended up walking for a mile or two before ending up back at the Louvre again! After getting the correct address, we walked back to the metro stop we had gotten off at, and eventually found the correct address just a little past the station in the opposite direction we had originally walked. The lesson here is… if you’re ever in Paris and need to find an address, don’t assume the numbers are laid out logically or that the address number of a neighbouring property is close to your own!
After eating, we headed out for some coffee and then back to the hotel.
Now late in the day, we still have a few more plans to get through. One of Nadine’s cousins, who lives in Paris, and her aunt who was visiting from Madagascar, stopped by the hotel for a short visit. We all had drinks in the hotel lounge.
After a quick visit, we still wanted to head down to the Seine for a night-time river cruise on our last day together. The kids were very tired, so we said our goodbyes as the kids headed back to their hotel, while Tsiry, Anita, Nadine and I took a taxi down to the river so we could get there before the last boat leaves at 10:30.
The river cruise was very good, and I’m glad we took the cruise at night to see the city and the bridges lit up so brightly. My night photos don’t tend to come out very well, especially when taken from a moving boat, so I didn’t take very many pictures. The photo below, while still a bit blurry, is about the only one that was worth posting here.
After the cruise, we walked around the Eiffel Tower area by night. I brought along a mini tripod (only about 5 inches in length so it would fit in a pocket when walking around) which helped a bit. I definitely need to take some courses in how to use my camera settings to properly take low light photos. However, below is one photo that came out pretty well (we used the timer to get all four of us in the shot, which I think helped keep the camera steady—I guess I should use a timer delay more often at night).
Although it was getting pretty late, we headed back to the Opera area for a nice late dinner on our final day together. I think it was 3 AM by the time we wrapped up and said our goodbyes. It was certainly too short a visit, but we made the most of it with some very full days (which is why I haven’t had much time to update the blog entries—I’m actually typing this entry, along with days 3 and 4 from the plane on our return flight home). Hopefully, it won’t be another 7 years before we see each other again!
Tsiry and Anita returned to their hotel and Nadine and I returned to ours to organize things and get at least a few hours of sleep before we have to get up and leave the hotel around 8 AM to catch our train for London.
