Europe Part 4: Last Day in Paris before Angers

In the morning we went straight to the catacombs. Bryce is fascinated with dead stuff so this was right up his alley. In the city of Paris they have, deep beneath the earth, the bones of approximately 6 million people! They have stacked the bones and made patterns out of the skulls. It was a pretty eerie and creepy place but we both really enjoyed it.

                   

The walls are made of bones…Bryce was much more friendly with the bones than I was.

  

Making the climb back up the many stairs to daylight.

After trekking through underground Paris, viewing Parisian remains, we headed over to Monmartre, a part of Paris that sits high on a hill and can be seen from lots of places in the city. In Monmartre, there is Sacre Coeur (a beautiful cathedral). Behind Sacre Coeur, we weaved along streets lined with aspiring artists. These artists are so talented, and each wants to sell you their art, or draw a sketch of you then sell it to you. We probably should have had it done, but our time is precious and we are cheap :)

   

I think Sacre Coeur is one of the most beautiful buildings ever. It is made from this white stone that bleaches every time it rains. We didn’t climb to the top, but it sits on top of a hill from which you can see all of Paris. So beautiful!

And of course we had to go check out Moulin Rouge. However, it’s important to keep your eyes forward in this part of town, otherwise you might see things you don’t want to see.

     

From Sacre Coeur we headed to the Musee D’Orsay. This used to be a train station that they converted into a museum. We weren’t allowed to take pictures, so these are the only shots we got inside, but it’s so beautiful. They have a lot of impressionist paintings which are my favorite, then quite a few neat sculptures as well.

We found a cute little crepe stand and ordered a couple delicious paninis and of course a dessert crepe to go with it. We found this nice little park to eat it in and boy was it nice to sit, relax and eat a yummy crepe.

Here I am standing in front of the Mussee de L’armee. This “army museum” is totally a guy museum. I was not at all interested in coming here, but Bryce wanted to. Good thing it was free with our Museum Pass! They did have quite the display of armor, guns and weaponry. We didn’t take many pictures inside.

Check out those guns!!

Napolean’s Tomb. It is huge! You can’t really tell from this picture, but if you look at Bryce standing behind it (waving to the camera) you can get an idea of it’s massive size. His tomb sits  under a huge dome.

    

In the picture on the right, we are standing in front of Les Invalides which is connected to the Army Museum. Under that dome is where we just were inside, looking at Napolean’s tomb.

We then headed to the Musee Rodin. Auguste Rodin was a famous sculptor. His sculptures are scattered throughout these beautiful gardens and inside this mansion. It is such a beautiful, small, fun museum.

Of course it’s tradition to pose like the statutes :)

In the evening, we headed over to le quartier latin (latin quarter) to eat dinner. This is the best place in town to eat because there are these tiny streets just lined with restaurants. Outside of the restaurants stands a man who tries to get you to come eat at their place. This was the restaurant we chose. You get an appetizer, entrée and a dessert for 10 euros! It was a great romantic little dinner.

We wanted to take a boat trip along the Seine, but we had an hour to kill before our ride so we walked along the Seine River. There in the first picture you can see the back of Notre Dame. It was amazing to me to see all of the people, sitting on the cement river banks, having picnics. It was such a fun area to be at night, everyone eating, laughing (maybe some drinking) and talking. We thoroughly enjoyed hanging out here and enjoying the Paris scenery.

   

A gentleman behind us on the boat, really wanted to get our picture, he took about 10 shots and this was the best one. It was so peaceful and beautiful to ride along the Seine. Our camera wasn’t very good at taking pictures at night.

  

These were the best pictures I could get of the Eiffel Tower. I LOVE seeing the eiffel tower lit up at night. It was especially beautiful this night as the moon sat just behind it. I don’t know what it is about this building that is so amazing but we loved it. It was the perfect way to conclude our stay in Paris before heading down to Angers.