Paris - Day Two

After sleeping soundly and not waking up to an alarm - thank goodness - we decided to take a long walk. The plan was to go to the Louvre, Arc de Triomphe, Eiffel Tower and then back to the apartment, all while enjoying the sites, checking out back roads, and taking pictures. We initially wanted to go into the Louvre that day, but the line was so stinking long that we decided we would buy tickets ahead of time and then just go the following day.

Here is Nicole at the back side of the Louvre...see all the people. No good!

 And the famous pyramids...if you look closely to the left side of the pyramid, you can see the line that is stretching from the front of the pyramid, to the left, down past the pool/fountain and then out of the picture. Tourists....do you see all two people just to the left of the pyramid in the foreground? They are like most who stand there and get a picture taken of them touching the top of the pyramid. We didn't do that.

For there, we started walking straight up the Avenue des Champs Elysees toward the Arc de Triomphe where we found this fabulous statue.

And this awesome lamp post.

Shortly after this picture was taken, we were famished and took some side roads and found a little cafe, where we had Cafe Au Lait's and Croque Madame/Monsieur sandwiches (ham and cheese) and a lovely fresh salad.

As we continued up the Avenue, we found that it was a popular place to shop with the flagship Louis Vuitton store (where Nicole found a bag that she really wanted) and a store called Lancel (where Nicole found a bag that she really wanted). While in the Lancel store, purchasing our bag and wallet, we asked the shop keeper if this store was only in France. She said, "No, we are worldwide" to our surprise. Neither of us had heard or seen Lancel in the states, so I asked her if they were in the US. Her answer was, "Not yet." I was shocked that a worldwide, high-end fashion store didn't have a store in the worlds largest economy. Oh well....I guess Dubai is working out well for them. Needless to say, we are looking forward to them opening up a store; however, for the time being, I am sure that we are a small percentage of the population that has Lancel items.

We kept walking along and then we found it...

Yes, that is Nicole with her Lancel bag and the Arc. What a sight to behold. That Arc is GIGANTIC!

In order to get under the Arc, you have to take a walkway under the street as at the intersection, there is a traffic circle (of course with no lights....people just yield to get into the circle...wish that happened here in the US) of which you cannot cross without being a bug on a windshield. 

Once we got under the Arc, I had this great idea....

From there, we took our time heading to the Eiffel tower. As we meandered along the streets we chatted and planned out our evening. We were starting to get tired with all the walking and then BOOM, there it was...

I mean, it doesn't look like much from this picture, but the tower is magnificent. I wanted to go up to the second floor, but when we got there, we were obviously beaten by many other tourists who had the same idea. This trip I decided against purchasing tickets ahead of time and thought since it was early in the year, there wouldn't be as many tourists. Boy was I wrong. So needless to say, we didn't get up into the tower this trip. I figure it will be there and we will just hit it on our next trip to Paris.

As we exited the other side of the tower, we got some pretty amazing shots...

From there we hiked it through the financial/political district which was dead since it was a Saturday, ate dinner at a little hole in the wall restaurant (where I had the best risotto ever) and then back to the apartment. While heading back we passed in front of Notre Dame and caught a candlelight Easter mass. It was quite amazing a beautiful in the huge cathedral.

From there, back to the apartment and some well needed rest as I calculated the amount of miles we walked that day....right around 10 miles in total....