Paris Day 3

The morning of day 3 in Paris was spent sleeping in a little, eating breakfast at our hotel, and waiting for Bethany and Bill to return from picking up Bethany's roommate, Patricia, at the airport.  So we got a late start on the day, but we still managed to fit a lot in.

Once they got back to the hotel we all set out on the metro to make our way around the city to see all the sights that we were wanting to see.  Our first stop was Musee d'Orsay which houses an extensive collection of impressionist and post-impressionist works of art by painters such as Monet, Manet, Degas, Renoir, Cezanne, Seurat, Sisley, Gauguin, and Van Gogh.  They had had a special exhibit of Manet's work that we got to walk through.  Once we were fully cultured in the museum we headed out across the river towards the Louvre.  The bridge that we crossed is one the bridges with "love locks" along its railings.   

 

Trevor and I decided to seal our love by following the tradition of locking a padlock with our initials on it to the bridge and throwing the key in the river below.

On the other side of the bridge we walked the grounds around the Louvre.  We decided that it would take too much time to actually walk through the Louvre, and we really only wanted to see the Mona Lisa so it wouldn't be worth our time.

From there we made our way to Notre Dame.

We toured the inside, which is just breathtaking.

We also wanted to climb the bell tower and see the sights from there... until we saw the line which was so long, and not moving an inch.  We decided to do some shopping instead.  After walking for what felt like hours trying to find all the shops we wanted to go to, we took the metro back to our hotel to get ready for our third Fat Tire tour, the night bike tour.  We grabbed a quick dinner, and then met up at the Fat Tire office to start the tour.  This time we got to wear these very stylish reflective vests that really allowed us to blend in with the locals.

The tour took us around Paris, stopping near Notre Dame take an ice cream break.  We kept on to the Louvre for a photo op.

Our last stop on the tour was to a river boat for a cruise down the river to see the city at night.  There were plenty of sights to see and no shortage of wine.  It was a great ending to a busy day.