First stop today was the catacombs... very interesting from an historical standpoint and also very sad/morbid. There are bones from millions (!) of Parisians down there, transferred from cemeteries all over.
Next, we headed to Rue Mouffetard, supposedly the oldest street in Paris. There, we found a lively street market. We picked up baguettes from the famous Les Panetons bakery, some cheese from a Fromagerie, and a smoothie from a smoothie stand and headed to the nearby park for a picnic.
From there, we headed to the Musee de Rodin, which is apparently the residence where Rodin lived later in life. It was a state owned apartment that he was able to live in rent free because he agreed to leave his art to the state. It houses many of his most famous pieces such as The Thinker, The Gates of Hell, and The Kiss.
Nearby is the Dome Church, and our Paris Museum Pass gets us in for free so we dropped in to check it out. The Dome Church houses Napoleon's remains. Yes, that's a huge coffin, but the little guy is encased in six coffins, though we're not sure why (maybe to make him look big?).
We headed to the Arc de Triomphe next, which is a very impressive monument at the western end of the Champs-Élysées. From the top, we survey Paris, from the Eiffel Tower, to the Louvre, to the skyscrapers in La Defense. There was some kind of ceremony going on with the Tomb of the Unknown soldier there, and the police folks didn't like us trying to move around the arc to take pictures of the massive statues.
We took a nighttime climb up the towers of the cathedral of Notre Dame. We saw the sparkly lights from the Eiffel tower (hourly) from afar. After climbing down the steps, we found some quick dinner and near the end of our meal the Euro2008 final game finished with Spain beating Germany 1-0. Even though we were in France, there were tons of fans celebrating immediately. The same honking, yelling, and other behavior that has followed us from Dresden, to Venice, to Juelich/Cologne, has followed us here to Paris.
We took a stroll through the Latin Quarter, got some crepes, and wandered about. There's quite a bit going on there on a Sunday night. Still, the fans of Spain were all over, and when we returned to the Metro stop, we saw that the fans were all over in the fountain of Saint Michel (Fontaine Saint-Michel). Three police officers were right behind us as we watched, but they didn't seem to care.
First stop today was the catacombs... very interesting from an historical standpoint and also very sad/morbid. There are bones from millions (!) of Parisians down there, transferred from cemeteries all over.
Next, we headed to Rue Mouffetard, supposedly the oldest street in Paris. There, we found a lively street market. We picked up baguettes from the famous Les Panetons bakery, some cheese from a Fromagerie, and a smoothie from a smoothie stand and headed to the nearby park for a picnic.
From there, we headed to the Musee de Rodin, which is apparently the residence where Rodin lived later in life. It was a state owned apartment that he was able to live in rent free because he agreed to leave his art to the state. It houses many of his most famous pieces such as The Thinker, The Gates of Hell, and The Kiss.
Nearby is the Dome Church, and our Paris Museum Pass gets us in for free so we dropped in to check it out. The Dome Church houses Napoleon's remains. Yes, that's a huge coffin, but the little guy is encased in six coffins, though we're not sure why (maybe to make him look big?).
We headed to the Arc de Triomphe next, which is a very impressive monument at the western end of the Champs-Élysées. From the top, we survey Paris, from the Eiffel Tower, to the Louvre, to the skyscrapers in La Defense. There was some kind of ceremony going on with the Tomb of the Unknown soldier there, and the police folks didn't like us trying to move around the arc to take pictures of the massive statues.
We took a nighttime climb up the towers of the cathedral of Notre Dame. We saw the sparkly lights from the Eiffel tower (hourly) from afar. After climbing down the steps, we found some quick dinner and near the end of our meal the Euro2008 final game finished with Spain beating Germany 1-0. Even though we were in France, there were tons of fans celebrating immediately. The same honking, yelling, and other behavior that has followed us from Dresden, to Venice, to Juelich/Cologne, has followed us here to Paris.
We took a stroll through the Latin Quarter, got some crepes, and wandered about. There's quite a bit going on there on a Sunday night. Still, the fans of Spain were all over, and when we returned to the Metro stop, we saw that the fans were all over in the fountain of Saint Michel (Fontaine Saint-Michel). Three police officers were right behind us as we watched, but they didn't seem to care.
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