Day 8 - January 2, 2014
Our last day in Paris was a busy one. We were scheduled to catch the Eurostar back to London that afternoon and this time I doublechecked the departure time and had Lauren look at the tickets as well since I didn't want to miss the train again and buy 3 new train tickets. Once we were all assured of when we had to leave, we planned the day accordingly. Our first stop was the Louvre.
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| Outside the Louvre |
On my first trip to Paris many years ago, I didn't get a chance to go to the Louvre as my friends and I ran out of time. We only saw the famous pyramids outside but the Louvre was closed in the short time we had left in Paris. So I was pleased to be able to go inside this time. Our mission, of course, was to see the Mona Lisa in person.
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| Inside the Louvre |
I'm no art aficionado and what I know about art can be written on the top of a pin. I just like looking at the paintings and sculptures and some things I like from an aesthetic point of view and some art is just impressive in their style, colors and creation. Michaelangelo's David, for instance, impressed me from the first moment I saw it in Florence. The Sistine Chapel gives me the same sense of awe. I would like to say the Mona Lisa had the same impact but....I can't. I don't have enough of an appreciation for art or DaVinci to understand how she got to be so famous. It's a small painting, well roped off to keep all the tourists and gawkers at bay and yet she was crowded enough that it was difficult to get close enough to get a picture. Thank goodness for the zoom function on my camera or I wouldn't have been able to even get this shot without someone's iphone waving in the air as they try to get
their shot. But hey, it was the Mona Lisa and now I can say I saw it in person at the Louvre. Bucket list - check.
After the Louvre, we went to Angelina (next post) as another place several friends told me, "you've
got to go to Angelina". So we did.
Then we hustled to Notre Dame. I love Notre Dame. Call it another place/structure/cathedral/tourist attraction I could look at all day long. It's just so majestic and impressive. My nieces weren't as familiar with it as I was and I assume Victor Hugo's Hunchback of Notre Dame wasn't one of the books they read in high school English so I tried the tack of "Remember the Disney movie? Quasimodo and Esmeralda?" "Ohhhh yeah." Whatever lets you connect with the millennial generation.
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| Notre Dame |
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| Notre Dame |
Alas, by the time we got to Notre Dame, it was almost the middle of the day and the lines to get inside were worthy of Disneyland in summer with the newest ride, even down to the rope lines snaking around. Since we didn't have hours to spend in line and we wanted to do some souvenir shopping in Paris before we went back to pricey London, we skipped touring the inside and instead took off to buy gifts for family and friends back home. Chocolate was our main mission because you can't go to Europe and not bring back European chocolate but we also managed to find some prints of the Eiffel Tower, L'Arc de Triomphe, the Louvre and Notre Dame to commemorate our trip as well as other tsotchkes for my nieces to take back to their friends.
Then it was off to a crepe place (future post) for authentic French crepes for our last meal in Paris, back to the hotel to pick up our luggage and a final Metro ride to Gare du Nord to transfer to the Eurostar. This time our ride back was uneventful and direct to St Pancras. We had another transfer on the Underground at Kings Cross to go to our last London hotel, this one near Heathrow as our trip headed into its final day.
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