Day 3: The Louvre, Tuileries and Arc de Triomphe

Day 3 started at th Louvre. We walked around the beautiful museum grounds and the Tuileries before heading into the museum.







Inside the museum, we visited the "must see" exhibits.





We could only get about 20 feet away from the Mona Lisa, and even then I had to hold the camera up over my head to get a photo.

Later that evening, we visited the Arc de Triomph, one of my favorite things we did. We planned to go in the evening to watch the sunset and see the Eiffel Tower lights go on. What we didn't realize when we headed out about 8:30pm, is that the sun doesn't set until very late - it was nearly 10pm before the sun dipped down. But that was ok, we enjoyed hanging out on top of the Arc.















After we came back down from the Arc, Jeff was standing on one of the uplights that lit the Arc in the evening.



As we walked home down the Champs-Elysee, we crossed the Seine on the Pont Alexandre III bridge, and I took what has to be my favorite photo from our trip, this view of the Eiffel Tower.

Paris Day 2: Invalides and Sacre Coeur

After walking through the Rodin garden we headed over to the Invalides, where the main attraction was Napoleon's Tomb. Jeff was fascinated with Napoleon and we couldn't get over the scale of the room and how massive the tomb was.



They also have a very good WWII museum on site and beautiful gardens. It was interesting to get a European perspective on the war, and to understand what happened in Paris when they were occupied.





Later in the day we went to Monmarte to walk around and visit the Sacre Coeur. Monmarte was a lot of fun - small, winding streets with lots of shops and food vendors. Did I mention how hilly it was? We stopped for some crepes before making the final climb up to Sacre Coeur. There were a ton of people all around Sacre Coeur, its got great views of the city and its a beautiful church.







The metro stop near Sacre Coeur is one of the few remaining in the original Art Nouveau style.