France - Day 2 Paris

France Day 2

Lets just say we did not sleep too well. My concerns about being on the ground floor facing the street were right on. I used ear plugs and got about 6 hours, Sol and Marco did not fare as well. We asked at the front desk about changing rooms and they are fully booked. They did show us these buttons on the windows that roll down these metal shutters that seem to make our room bomb proof and probably quite silent. So now we have a choice of air or silence, but not both. We will see what happens tonight.

We had a great continental breakfast of the most delicious croissants and coffee. As Sol did note, most places served caned or boxed OJ, not exactly Tropicana. Marco even mentioned that breakfast was the best part of Paris so far!

We then took metro to the Louve. Was quite surprised that there were no lines and it even seemed affordable, almost a bargain at about $10 US and Marco free. Free for under 18. I so love that word! But not to worry, they made it up on lunch.

We inquired about a real tour but it did not start until 2:00pm and it was only 10am so We rented the headsets that gave a great tour of the main attractions and highly recommend it.

We had lunch which was ok and pricey because we wanted to try one more audio tour. There is a cold water machine, pitchers, and ice we found. This was great as we love ice water and it is not to be found often. We drank up.

We then walked most of the way to the Arc de Triomphe. I recommend saving your feet and getting on the metro as we did after our feet started to hurt. There are some nice gardens and fountains, but lots of dust from the walk and you need your energy to walk up the Arc.

The view from the Arc was great and very worth while. After enjoying the sights we came down and walked along Champs Elysees (some very expensive stores and fun people to watch). I forgot to mention there are tons of scooters here and we saw two hit by cars in less than a half an hour on the same road.

For what I think was dinner Marco wanted some good 'ol Mikey D's. This was some McDonalds. Very large with a separate section for Espressos, and deserts. Sol and I split a "Le M". and Marco had to have a "Royal with Cheese" from the movie Pulp Fiction. Afterwords we did have a Frapachino and Cafe au lait. We did a little more walking and finally got on a metro back to the hotel. Our feet were in pain.

Took a nap for a couple of hours and am now back awake and may head out again.

The Fromers guide it great and the map is absolulty super. We use it all the time as it is better than the map we bought. We also picked up a good metro map we shall pass on.

TTFN
Joe