Saturday, March 14, 2009

Paris Day 2- Notre Dame and Champs De Elysses

We started the day off with pastries and cafe creme's at a local cafe.  We took a casual stroll down to the metro and hopped on for a trip to Notre Dame.  We quickly found point zero, the point from which all distances in Paris are measured from.  
We entered Notre Dame and walked around marveling at all the chapels and detail.  After we toured the inside we used our museum passes for a free tour of the towers and bellfry's.  Can you say stairs?  But the views were amazing.
A quick tour of the archeological crypt and then 
we walked to the back of Notre Dame and across the bridge to Ille de St Louis.  We had a nice lunch at a little cafe overlooking Notre Dame.  Here John is contemplating what his seafood platter covered in cheese is going to taste like :)
After what seemed like an eternity getting our check we took a little walk along the left bank over to St Chapelle.  The stained glass here was amazing!  It didn't photograph well at all.  It is one of those have to see it in person kinda places.  A little further down the way was the Concergirie.  We got to see the cell Marie Antoinette was kept in.  Further walking led us to pont Neuf and then along the Seine to the Louvre where I picked up a Paris mug and a frap from starbucks and some postcard envelopes.  Since we were on a straight shot to the Arc De Triumph we decided to walk the entire Champs de Elysses.
 
 What fun!  We walked up more stairs to the top and were treated to amazing views of Paris.  We happened to be there when they rekindled the flame on the tomb of the unknown soldier.  
Dinner at the Cafe Bosquet where we ordered Escargot.  An evening walk to the eiffel tower with crepe in hand.  It was too late to go up the tower so we tabled it till the next day.

4 comments:

Natalie said...

Loved the pictures, Traci! Thanks for sharing.

BTW, it was hard to post something gracious through my jealous haze.

Chloe said...

Beautiful pictures. It sounds like you had a great time.

What did you wear for footwear?

Unknown said...

Can I say that I am beyond jealous?? What a fantastic time. I am so glad that you go to go.

Traci said...

Chloe,
I wore my lands end mary jane trekkers. Dh (the tourist) wore his sneakers on day 2. We killed our feet the first day in dress shoes. Honestly though no one wore white shoes tennies or otherwise.