Monday, March 9, 2009

Paris- Day 2 part 2

My last post ended with us walking down the Champs. We did stop in the Disney store to look around and peeked into one of the super fancy car dealerships for kicks. We kept going though because we knew the weather was wonderful that day and we had to get to the Arc and Eiffel Tower! I'm glad we pushed through because Sunday was rainy and cold, we didn't do too much!






At the end of the Champs is the Arc de Triomphe. There was a pretty long line to get to the top but we had the museum pass so we went right up. I also took the "handicapped" elevator because I had been walking for miles, up and down stairs all day, and quite frankly my pregnant body was about to collapse. (Just so you know, there is one. You have to ask the attendant to take you up but they were more than happy to).

From the top you can see the entire city including the Eiffel Tower towering over the city. It was really cool to see, although again everything looked grey and well, like winter!
View of the Champs:

Obviously the E. Tower area
At the base of the Arc is the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier from WWI. The flame is rekindled every evening at 6:30pm.

From here, we took the metro (It looks so close, but it's a good walk and there's nothing along the way) over to the Eiffel Tower. We took a few photos and decided to skip going up to the top. I know, right? How could you not do this? Well for one, we had *just* been to the top of the Arc and had seen the overview of the city. I didn't feel the need to do it 10 minutes later. It was also starting to drop dramatically in temp now, at almost sunset, and it was getting very windy. The queue for going up the tower had to be atleast an hour and there were hurdled like cattle into this tiny little waiting area, like at Six Flags. **FYI, the museum pass does not cover this so you do have to wait in line, and you do have to pay.**

We decided to watch the sunset and take some pictures of the tower as the lights came on instead. We had about an hour before then, so we walked around the corner from the Tower and had a drink at a cafe. I had my first crepes, with Nutella even, and they were fantastic. I can't wait to make some at home!




Afterwards, we decided to hop one of the glass domed boats on the Seine, right at the base of the E. Tower. I believe it was 12 euroish per adult for a 1 hour boat ride down the Seine. There are several companies, they run every half hour or so. We took an 8pm ride and it was lovely to go at night. Almost every monument or sight is on the Seine so you really see it all on this one trip, and at night it's especially romantic and beautiful! There is a headset at every seat that speaks several languages so you can hear some trivia if you'd like along the way. I listened to about half of it and then decided to just enjoy the quiet. I will admit by about 45 min in I was completely falling asleep from walking the entire day but it was just so relaxing!!
This was probably my favorite thing on the trip. a must do!


By now it was 9pm and we had to eat dinner. We were so incredibly tired so we took the metro back to our hotel area and stopped at a little Thai place. They were SO sweet and the food was great!! I think I took 2 steps into the hotel room before I passed out cold for the night. :)

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