Quality Hotel Rueil La Defense Rueil-Malmaison

On Friday, Vicki and I visited the Louvre. Given it's size, we went in with a plan of attack. I really wanted to see the Greek and Roman sculptures as well as the Italian Renaissance works, so we focused on those. Vicki wanted to check out the Egyptians, so we did that too. I must say, the Brits have a far better Egyptian collection. However, the Louvre's collection of Renaissance works is tremendous.

Of course, the big name painting of the ...

... around the sea of French chatter, I turned to Casey and said, "Here's to two and a half months of feeling very, very stupid." : ) When we landed after a sleepless flight, my travel buddy and I quickly discovered that neither of us had looked up directions from the airport to our first destination--the hostel in Paris where we would be staying for the first couple nights. We wondered around the airport until we found the ...

... on your map because there are so many big gorgeous churches. It's pretty crazy. It's also pretty crazy to try to walk everywhere, considering the size of the city, but I always try, cause I think that's the best way to see and learn a city - walk it. But, a couple days in, I had to change my tune. Why? Well, I had gone almost 2 month without a blister (well, a bad disruptive blister) but somehow, I ended up with one covering pretty much the entire ball of ...

... photos of la Giaconda before moving on. On to Ste Chappelle - queue far too long and rqin threatening so we walked round to Notre Dame - queue for the tower was even longer so after listening to the ND organ for a short while we went back to Ste Chappelle to see the wonderful stained glass and the shrine devoid of its 20 relics - melted during the revolution in 1790s but somehow recovered and now in the Louvre.

... impossible to even imagine that I am in Paris, stepping on French soil day after day--eating French food, speaking French to French people...its all very strange still and seemily impossibly unreal. A few small random thoughts/notes about Paris: DOGS are everywhere--sitting at cafes, in the metro, on the streets. Luckily, I only stepped in doggie poo once, but there certainly is ...

Allô le monde, Aujourd'hui, on est allé à Montparnasse. Plutôt à la Tour Montparnasse. C'est la plus grosse bâtisse de Paris. Et le dernier plancher est un observatoire avec des fenêtres et tu peux voir tout Paris et tu peux voir à 40 km. J'avais amené mes jumelles, (pis eux-autres écrivent Longues-Vues pour les patentes que tu mets 1 euro dedans pour regarder la ville) moi, qui me force pour bien perler. Entéka, mes jumelles étaient meilleures que leurs Longues-Vues ...

... really good to see Paris by day time. We visited some of the major tourist sites notre dame, large park out the front of the lourve... we had lunch in this park and visited one of the best icecream shops in Paris (apparently it is also extremely old!!) oh this is so difficult - because I was such a Lazy bum and didnt finish this at the time now(9 months later) I cant rember all the little things that made me laugh at the time!!! ok - synopsis - bike tour= fantastic - go and do it ...

... was very interesting as I've never seen a Spanish mass before. The entire congregation follows a priest and a bunch of badass looking monks in black robes with red crosses on their chests and heavy leather harnesses all the way around the church. The harnesses are for supporting a huge cross that the monks take turns carrying in the procession. Every ten steps or so everyone stops, the priest says a prayer, they all sing a hymn and then move on another ten steps ...

... It wasnt even busy. Rodin is the sculpturer who did "the thinker" and "the kiss" and others... it was all quite good. We then walked up the Champs Elysees and among other things went up the Arc de Triomphe...that was great. It was a good vantage of the city. So, Paris was amazing, but... if I do it again, I will go in the Spring or Fall. In the summer, the locals leave town and the city truly is 90 percent tourists.... aahhh!

... had a short queue. We rode it once, then again as part of the "Magic Unlimited" promotion that is on again at this time of year, where one can hop off then board another train without having to requeue. We wanted to do this again after our second ride, but at this time the queue had grown and they decided to temporarily suspend this service on the ride. We headed down to Big Thunder Mountain in Frontierland in the hope that it wasn't too busy yet. Unfortunately it too was non ...