Ooh La La Louvre

To kick-off our week in Paris, we started our first full day with a city tour. We lucked out on this tour and the guide picked us up at our hotel. It was a very intimate group. There were only six of us, so we were able to really get a in depth tour of the city! It just so happened to be fashion week in Paris also while we were there. Ooh la la! There were extra exhibits and events (and people and traffic) for the week. No pressure to look nice, or anything.  ;-)

We left early so the sun was just starting to peak through the clouds.  LOOK at this view over the Seine. Ah, lovely. 

On our drive we went right by the Arc de Triomphe. I'll go ahead and make this statement that Paris natives are crazy drivers!! There is no lane, no direction; you just make your own path and go where you see room. We happened to be in the front seat with our driver and all we could do was give our Southern wave and smile as we cut people off. As you can see, below, a motorcyclist is heading straight for us. We cut off the whole circle of cars to get to the inside "lane". Beep Beep. Wave. We also learned that the cars entering the circle have the right away. Isn't that crazy?!

We were making our way over to the Eiffel Tower. We had seen glimpses of it at the very top from the distance but were not prepared for the grandeur and beauty. I think the time of day also gave it a magical glow.  (We go back in the week for a much closer look inside so stay tuned for that.)

We got back in our race car and drove all the way across the city to Montmartre. The definition from dictionary.com: "a hilly section in the N part of Paris, France: noted for the artists who have frequented and lived in the area." Spot on! From here, you can see the whole city. We drove up to the top and had time to walk around the little streets. The streets are filled with art galleries and restaurants. The main point of interest here is the church, the Basilique Du Sacre Coeur. 

And from these step, when you turn around, this is your view:

It was an overcast day but you could see the whole city. And vice versa. It seemed like everywhere we were, we could look up and see the hill of Montmartre. 

 

From there, we went back into the heart of the city to grab some lunch then go to the Louvre. On the way back, we went through the tunnel where Princess Diana lost her life. The gold flame at the top is a memorial to her. 

We grabbed a bite to eat and waited for our guided tour of the Louvre to begin. We HIGHLY recommend taking a guided tour if you are short on time or just want to get the bang for your buck. It's the biggest museum in the WORLD, and I read that if you looked at every exhibit it would take you something like 100 days. We took way too many pictures, but here were some of our favorite highlights:

The pièce de ré·sis·tance of the Louvre is of course, the Mona Lisa. She almost has a room all to herself.  She's special. We both thought they could have a better system to view. It's a free-for-all. So people are literally pushing and fighting their way to get the best picture. You can see @aushellbell below on one end of the room, and Mona Lisa at the very back wall. 

Because we were there -- we did fight to try to get an unobstructed view, then we left that room immediately. Here she is in all her glory.

We still had a few other highlights to see to wrap up our time at the museum. After the guided tour, we were able to spend as much time as we wanted. It's such an amazing gallery. Just know, there's no way to see it all, so best advice is to have a plan.

We left the Louvre and decided to be tres Parisian and stop at a cafe for an afternoon coffee. Talk about the perfect place to people watch. Parisians eat dinner very late at night, so in the afternoons it's all about the coffee break. Sometimes it can even be hard to find a seat outside. We were lucky and found the perfect stop for our afternoon break. We opted to get some cheese and bread as well. YUM.

We came back to the hotel and rested for a while before going out to dinner. Our hotel friends had recommended this little cafe - Cafe Varenne. This was another top dinner of our trip. We weren't too hungry, so we split an entree. It was a fish dinner over a bed of a warm lentil salad. Again - classic French on a plate. We loved it, and I highly recommend adding this restaurant to your list. You won't regret it. The staff was very friendly and helped us with translation of the menu items.

We did have a "lost in translation" moment. We asked the waiter which of these two desserts he recommended. He must have misunderstood because he brought them both to the table. HA. C'est la vie. We couldn't be disrespectful, so had to enjoy both of them.

Such a great ending to our first full day in Paris. Our next post will talk about our food tour of Paris. Probably our FAVORITE day of the entire two weeks. Until then....

Bisous,