Day 3

Day 3 started with another great breakfast and a bus tour of the highlights of Paris. We saw the Eiffel Tower from the Palais de Chaillot. (It was overcast and a bit polluted, but that made the Métro free.) We drove through the right bank where we saw again the Opéra, the grands magasins (great department stores), and the grands boulevards of Hausmann. We did a tour of the Place de la Concorde and made our way up the great Champs Élysées, the greatest of the boulevards, and ended going around the Place de l'Ëtoile, home of the Arc de Triomphe.

Our driving tour took us through the fifth arrondissement, the Latin Quarter. We saw the Sorbonne, Saint Suplice church and the Luxembourg gardens. Our driver dropped us off on Boulevard St. Michel, within walking distance of the Notre Dame Cathedral.

We were in time for noon mass. The Shawe students attended. We just walked around the fringe and absorbed the ambiance. After we exited, Gloria, the city guide, told us all kind of things about Notre Dame and Paris in general, in a thick French accent. The final thing we had to do before leaving Notre Dame was to step on the spot which is considered the geographical center of France, so as to assure that we return one day.

For lunch, we dined at one of my favorite Parisian cafés, Chez Panis, just across from Notre Dame. Ashlee had poulet tamboouli, a chicken dish. I guess she liked it as she was the first finished. 

After lunch, we had ice cream in the narrow pedestrian streets just past Shakespeare and Company. The shop makes the ice cream in you cone look like a flower. It is as amazing as it is delicious. We met the others in Place Saint Michel as we were finishing our ice creams.

Next we walked on to the Louvre. Below, you see Michael, our tour director, standing in the courtyard of Henri I inside the Louvre compound, explaining history and life and other things.

We only had about three hours in the Louvre, which is hardly enough to see the largest art museum in the world. Three days might make a dent, not three hours. We did, however see the Mona Lisa, Liberty Leading the People, Jacques-Louis David's Coronation of Josephine, as well as works by Giatto, Bernini and other 17th & 18th century masters. We saw the Venus de Milo and lots of Greek statues contemporary to that time.

We also visited the post office and a chocolate shop on the lower level of the Louvre before we left for dinner at Chez Clément on the Champs-Élysees.

The other groups went to try to catch a very cold boat ride on the Seine as we opted for a coffee on the Champs-Élysees. We were almost late for the ride to the top of the Eiffel Tower, but we made it on time. All of us made it to the very top, even Leann who in the end said, "This isn't bad." The worst part was the cold, biting wind. But we toughed it out.

Deb was quite proud of her ascension and Delany was a little freaked out by some of intentionally walking on the glass floor of the first floor of the tower. All in all, it was a very nice, very full, very educational day.