03.24.10

We woke up early and had breakfast delivered to our room so that we would have the energy to race over to the Louvre and face the crowds. I have never actually visited the Louvre as I am too overwhelmed at the size and therefore (irrationally) avoid it at all costs.  David, the more sensible of the two of us, does not share this fear and so we decided that the best course of action was to set ourselves up with an audio tour of just the masterpieces - Venus de Milo, The Winged Victory of Samothrace, and, of course, the Mona Lisa where the crowd was nearly more entertaining than the artwork.   I highly recommend this route as it took us just over an hour and did a fantastic job of making you feel that you got a good overview even though it was just the tip of the iceberg.  

We left the Louvre and made our way through the Tuillerie Gardens, past the Place de la Concorde, and onto the Champs Elysees.  We took a side street and stopped in at a cafe for a Sauvignon Blanc and some French Onion soup.   We did a serviceable job communicating with our waiter and enjoyed sitting on the street watching all the passerbys.  I laughed out loud when I noticed the restaurant across the street was Hippopotamus - the site of my rather unfortunate but certainly character-building 21st birthday celebration with Darrah and Casey.  I made DC listen to the story of our plight for the umpteenth time and then we headed out to finish our two-mile stroll to the Arc de Triomphe.  

We climbed the 269 stairs to the top (DC counted so give or take a few), caught our breath, and took in the panoramic views of Paris.  

Ready to get out of the tourist mess, we caught the Metro to Sacre-Couer and climbed hundreds more stairs in order to tour the church and enjoy the live music and festivities at the top of the hill.  Needing more sustenance, we headed to Place du Tetre and grabbed a sidewalk table where we split a Croque Monsieur (there was no Madame to be had) and watched the chaos of the artists painting and hawking their wares - some for as much as 250 euros; the seller of which immediately packed up and headed home.  Feeling renewed, we meandered through Montmarte to the Moulin Rouge before catching the Metro to St Germain where we attempted to eat steak and frites at Marisa and Scott’s highly recommended place (and, yes, if you are keeping count, this is meal number three in less than six hours) that, unfortunately, did not open until 7:00.  We found a substitute cafe with the best service of the trip and dragged our tired selves to the train station.  Au revoir Paris!