Notre Dame, The Louvre and The Moulin Rouge

Today we were able to sleep in for a moment which was a welcome relief to me and also to my dad I think. After getting in late from London, we needed the rest. I woke up about 8:00 or so and got my shower and then my dad got one and we soon after headed down to breakfast. Sadly most of the breakfast was gone as far as the sweet rolls and croissants; so, we got what we could find and ate it right up.

After breakfast, we headed out to conquer the city, relatively speaking anyway. We started at Notre Dame and got there at a good time because the line to get in wasn’t too long. We got an audio guided tour and walked around admiring the old cathedral. I think I enjoyed this more than my dad. There were a couple of things he found interesting but not a lot.

We next went to the Louvre, which I’m pretty sure had a million people milling about. We had bought museum passes at the Arc de Triomphe earlier so thankfully we didn’t have to stand in line to get a ticket. After a quick toilet break, we headed straight for the Mona Lisa. Well, us and about 500,000 other people. My dad fought the crowds to get up close, but if you know me very well then you probably know I hate crowds and especially hate being pushed this way and that so I opted not to stand amongst the people and instead got a glimpse from a distant.

We moved on and found some other famous pieces such as Napoleon’s Coronation, the Venus de Milo, and The Winged Victory of Samothrace. After three hours or so we decided to head out to the Tuilleries, the gardens in front of the Louvre. Just as we got outside it started raining and so we decided to come back to the hotel instead. We are going to try and see some of the gardens on Saturday, along with Napoleon’s tomb, the Eiffel Tower and Sacre Coeur at Montmatre.

We rested an hour and a half or so and then headed out to dinner at a seafood restaurant. We both had French onion soup that was amazing and then for our main course, I had poached haddock and my dad had salmon. I really enjoyed mine and I think he enjoyed his as well.

We had an hour to kill before the show at the Moulin Rouge –well, and hour before our ticket told us to be there. Turns out we maybe should have gone in a little sooner than we did. Our seat was on the back of a table in the balcony and we didn’t think we would be able to see anything. My dad found a stool and I moved my chair over and we ended up being able to see fairly well. The show was really amazing. The costumes were gorgeous and the singing and dancing and acts in between were really entertaining. It was one of the best things we have done so far I think.

We headed back to the hotel and are now getting ready to turn in for the night as we have another early start tomorrow. We are headed to Carentan and Normandy Beach to learn about and see up close the scenes of the D-Day invasion during World War II. It should be a great and interesting day.

The people trying to get an up close glance of the Mona Lisa

The Pyramid in front of the Louvre - and my dad in the foreground

The Moulin Rouge