Today we woke up early and had breakfast at the hotel. We then walked to The Louvre, which was about a 15 minute walk from our hotel. I wasn’t in the best mood for some reason so I tried to snap out of it.
Don wanted to see the Mona Lisa so I had looked up directions on the best, most efficient way to get in and see the Mona Lisa. I had also gotten us skip the line tickets. I didn’t realize though that the skip the line ticket was only good at the main entrance. I went to an entrance recommended for viewing the Mona Lisa. So we had to wait in a bit of a line, it didn’t take too long.
Once we got into the museum we booked it to the Mona Lisa. Luckily the museum was not too crowded yet and after a bit of getting turned around we found the room with the Mona Lisa. There wasn’t a line and there was a medium sized group viewing her. The room was quite sad; it was just a huge white room with construction going on. Then on the wall was the tiny Mona Lisa behind glass. We both knew the Mona Lisa was not very big, but it did just look so small and sad in this room. Tourists were pushing, trying to get the best shot of this painting that we all have seen. It was weird.
After seeing the Mona Lisa the museum had gotten much more crowded. I was thirsty so we stopped at the cafe in the museum. There wasn’t really anything in the Louvre that I wanted to see. I don’t know much about art; Don is much more knowledgeable when it comes to stuff like that. He looked at the map while we rested and found a few things to look at. The Egyptian art display was closed when we were there but that would have been cool to see. We probably walked around the museum for an hour or so but it was just so crowded so we decided to go outside.
Once we got outside we got some croissants and sat down. We sat around and people watched at various different fountains. There were a ton of birds. We even saw pigeons mating!
I think we both enjoyed the gardens at The Louvre more than being inside the museum. We walked around quite a bit and then decided to get lunch.
We found a place called Flottes. It seemed to be in a fancy part of Paris. I had chicken with mashed potatoes. The gravy it came with was awesome. Don had a steak. After we ate we walked back to the hotel and laid around.
We left around 8 for the Eiffel Tower. Greg and some people had decided that it would be cool to go up in the Eiffel Tower at sunset and have champagne. Sunset in Paris this time of year was super late, like around 9:40. We booked skip the line tickets for 9 pm. Jim, Doreen, Linda, and Donna arrived around when we did so we decided to go up because Greg, Julie, Patty, Kevin, & Laura were running late. It took a long time to get up to the top of the tower. The lines were ridiculous, even with a skip the line. I have to say I think I enjoyed seeing the tower from across the river more than actually going up it. The views were cool but often it felt too crowded to really enjoy it.
As we were going down, Greg and his crew were coming up so we decided to stay longer with them. It was fun to watch Greg since he’s afraid of heights.
Afterwards, I was pretty hungry but also tired. This just led to me being mostly grouchy, so even though Don tried to get me food, I just wanted to go sleep.
