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The final stop on our trip was Paris. We traveled on the overnight train from Venice and arrived in Paris around 9am, just in time to head to our second segway tour of the trip. This was a shorter tour, only about 4 hours but just as much fun as our tour in Rome.

We went past the major highlights including the Eiffel Tower, the Louvre, the military academy and other museums and scenic spots.  We even saw a movie being filmed in the middle of one intersection, and were able to stop for a couple minutes to watch.  Our lunch stop was at the little outdoor cafe outside the Louvre, which was really nice.  Our tour guide ate for free, a pretty good incentive to bring groups there!  While we were eating, our guide told us about the “secret” way to get into the Louvre, an alternate entrance that not a lot of people know about so there aren’t any line-ups.

After the tour, we jumped on the train and headed over to our hotel, which was right by a train station which made getting around Paris really easy.  We spent the rest of the day just wandering around (Alpha even found the restaurant where we had dinner the last time we were in Paris, no idea how he remembered) and picking up a few things that we needed. We picked a different spot for dinner this time, and sat facing the sidewalk so we could people-watch while we ate.

On our second day in Paris, our original plan was to go to the catacombs in the morning and the Louvre in the afternoon.  When we got to the catacombs, we found a line that pretty much wound right around the block, so we decided to skip it as neither of us wanted to spend two or more hours in line.  If we ever go back to Paris, we will definitely book tickets in advance for that one.

Since the catacombs were off the list, we headed to the Louvre next, and had much better luck there.  We found the entrance our guide told us about, and sure enough we sailed right in with no line-up at all. The museum itself was absolutely amazing, and even the building was work of art, never mind the artwork inside it. In the basement were the old city walls, which was pretty neat to see.  From there we headed to the Egyptian section, which was amazing, although somewhat unfortunate that all those treasures have been removed from Egypt. There was everything from sphinxes (Alpha even found his twin) to mummies to mummified cats to pottery collections. I think the thing that both fascinated and wigged me out the most was the individually wrapped fingers on one of the mummies; for some reason that really nailed home the fact that it once was a living, breathing person inside all the bandages.

From the Egyptian section, we moved on to the Greek and Roman sections, and then some of the other artwork areas. The sheer quantity of artwork in that place is unbelievable, and the subject of many of the paintings got to be somewhat comical after a while. For a certain period in history, artists seemed to be putting bare breasts into every picture, no matter how inappropriate the topic.  War scene; lion mauling baby; you name it and there was a bare breast somewhere in the picture. We went back to the same little outdoor cafe for lunch, and then headed back in to see more artwork. I even saw the Mona Lisa, but only from a distance as there was a huge crowd of people around it.

That evening we wandered down by the Eiffel Tower a bit, checked out the line-ups to see what we’d be dealing with, and then had dinner at a restaurant right on the water, and got to see the tower twinkling. Dinner was pretty good, except for our appetizer was rather unappetizing. We ordered tapas, and ended up getting 5 sardines laid out in a nice neat row, heads and all, and unbelievable stench.  We had to send them back, it was hard to imagine anyone looking at them and wanting to pop them in their mouth but I guess some people do.

Day three was the Eiffel Tower, which was extremely packed, but well worth it. We waited in line about 45 minutes or so, which wasn’t too bad, then headed up to the first level, had a look and headed up to the top.  On the way up to the first level, we were right at the outside of the elevator, and both of us were a little wigged out on the trip up, as the ground got further and further away. By the time we got there, I was ok but I think Alpha was still a bit nervous. Heading up to the top didn’t seem as bad, although it was really packed up there.  We walked all around the circle, and it was pretty neat to see the city from that height.  Once we were done up at the top, we headed back down to the first level and had a tasty lunch at the restaurant there, then headed back to the hotel to pick up our bags and start our journey home.

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