Paris, Part 2

The morning of the 4th, Mom and I were so tired, we slept in until 9AM. After getting ready, we went straight to Notre-Dame. The cathedral was busy with tourists to say the least. However, the general grandeur of the cathedral was still a sight to see.

I preferred the Sainte-Chapelle cathedral though because of the magnificent stained glass windows. They surrounded the entire church and each set of windows told a different story. Although it was kind of hard to figure out what the message of each scene was, it was still pretty incredible that they had so much intricately detailed stained glass.

We then headed across the street for some chocolat chaud (hot chocolate) since it was a bit cool and drizzling. It was kind of unusual because they gave you a cup with the melted chocolate and a cup with the hot milk and you just got to make it how you liked. Nonetheless, it was exactly what we needed before moving on.

If that wasn't enough history in one day, we then walked over to the Louvre. We of course saw the Mona Lisa (not as underwhelming as people make it out to be, I thought) and Venus de Milo and many other famous pieces. We ended up getting quite lost in the Sully wing with the Egyptian artifacts. I actually didn't mind too much since ancient Egypt is one of my favorite time periods to learn about, but it was very warm in the museum so we headed out.

By that time, we were hungry for some dinner, so we assembled a true French picnic complete with baguette, French cheese and meat all bought from different stores. Later, we took off to see the Eiffel Tower at night when it is lit up and there was even a light show at the top of the hour.

Right next to the tower were the Seine River boat cruises. It was an hour long, and mostly pointed out things we had already seen. However, it was cool to see how more of Paris looked at night.

Our last day in Paris was certainly a good one, and we really felt like we had taken in the true 'atmosphere.'