We arrived fairly late to our hotel in Paris. This was due to a) half an hour late take-off as our plane hadn't come in from Greece yet (typical) and b) flying into Orly airport takes forever to get into the city, especially when your hotel is barely in zone 1 of the metro. In fact, Orly and our hotel were so far apart that we stood in line at the metro ticket office for forever, unable to believe the price was really as bad as the machine said it was. Sure enough, it is THAT expensive. However, there was a bus that would take us halfway and then the metro from there would be cheaper. So while our flight got in around 9:30, I think we didn't reach our hotel until about 11:00PM our so, and that's without checking a bag.
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| L'isle de la cite |
All this in preparation for a very long and tiring but amazing day ahead. First thing's first: Eiffel Tower. Unwilling to pay the ridiculous price or stand in line for hours, the Campbells enjoyed the tower from below while eating a nutella and strawberry crepe. We walked along the river Seine awhile and then caught half of the free walking tour where we got a good view of l'isle de la cite.
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| The Gates of Hell |
Having not been since 2005 and remembering that I really liked it, I suggested we check out the Rodin museum. Man that guy was amazing. Most noted for The Kiss, The Thinker, and the Gates of Hell, Rodin did an impressive number of sculpting in his day. The gardens were beautiful there and gave us a chance to really admire his work. Turns out he and Monet were friends (even born the same year) and would exchange gifts of paintings and sculptures haha. Needing to rest our weary we stopped at a little cafe outside the museum. After trying to enjoy the whole outdoor cafe atmosphere for a while, we were quickly rained out, grabbed our food and dashed inside. (this was how much of the trip went, sunny ...sunny...sunburned...RAIN! sunny...sprinkle...cloudy....RAIN!) Sandwiches, traditional Parisian onion soup, and cafe made for a nice meal. I'd forgotten how hard it can be to be vegetarian in France.
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| The Kiss |
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| Le Penseur |
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| Parisian Lunch |
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Le Louvre
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| Hammurabi's Code |
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Last but not least that day, we hit the Louvre. We were grateful a number of times on the trip that we were under 26 years old, as it got us into a lot of things free or discounted. Jon thoroughly enjoyed the Ancient Near East section, especially seeing Hammurabi's Code. It was pretty impressive to see stuff dated to 2000 BC. It was kind of hard to drag him out of that section, but we finally moved on and saw some French paintings, the Venus de Milo, some Da Vinci, lots of sculptures, and of course the acclaimed Mona Lisa. After about 3+ hours at the museum, we were museumed out and headed home.
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| Mona Lisa |
We arrived fairly late to our hotel in Paris. This was due to a) half an hour late take-off as our plane hadn't come in from Greece yet (typical) and b) flying into Orly airport takes forever to get into the city, especially when your hotel is barely in zone 1 of the metro. In fact, Orly and our hotel were so far apart that we stood in line at the metro ticket office for forever, unable to believe the price was really as bad as the machine said it was. Sure enough, it is THAT expensive. However, there was a bus that would take us halfway and then the metro from there would be cheaper. So while our flight got in around 9:30, I think we didn't reach our hotel until about 11:00PM our so, and that's without checking a bag. 
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