Paris Day 2

We woke up early and were ready for what would turn out to be a 10 mile walk around the city. I strolled with my coffee (latte) down the Champs Elysee (very Parisien) Pass the Place de la Concorde site of the guillotine during the revolution. Strange to be standing in a place that I've heard so much about and were the knitter Madame Lafarge in a tale of Two Cities sits and watches the blade fall. Little further down the gardens of the Tuileries and finally the pyramid at the Louvre. I expected big, but that thing is enormous. It does fit in brilliantly with the exquisite structure of the Louvre.We didn't have time (probably years) to see the galleries but I wanted to see what I.M. Pei had done in the lobby area to move the millions of people that visit the place. Absolutely loved it!.

Next walk down to Notre Dame. As some of you might remember, Adam had a project to build a cathedral. Ed at work was the engineer, I was the architect and Adam did the report. He got an A...DUH! Now, I was going to see the real thing. HOLY CRAP.. for being built in 1160 or so. To say that it was very emotional is an understatement. Luckily, very short line to go in. I was in awe once again at the audacity of men to thing that those thin ribs were going to hold the walls up. Simply spectacular.

Next, walk back up to the Musee d'Orsay, but first a quick lunch.. a round of croque monsieur for everyone. YUM..

Finally got to the d'Orsay, a train station in its previous life, it was going to be demolished until it was brilliantly turned it into a museum. We spent some serious time in there. HINT FOR TRAVELERS... get you entrance tickets to almost all museums on the web before getting there, you will save a lot of time not standing in line.

From there off to Napoleon's tomb. This is one of those weird things that I had seen a picture in my 7th grade history book and i wanted to see it. The space is unbeleivable. Finally, back to the hotel and another lovely dinner (steak tartar for me)