France -- Paris day 1

This morning (25 June 2010), we prepared and packed all of our bags before heading out to Notre Dame around 8:30 am. We arrived at the cathedral a little before 9 am and visited the inside of the church. It wasn’t very crowded yet – a good idea to visit this sight early before the hordes of tourists show up!

At 9:30 am, we joined the queue to go up into the tower and finally, a little after 10 am, we were on our way up a lot of little, winding stairs (after purchasing our 2-day Paris museum passes). After a LOT of spiraling stairs, we reached the top of the tower and visited numerous gargoyles and a big bell. The view of Paris was quite cool too.

Eventually we left Notre Dame, taking the RER train back to Hotel du Senlis so that we could transfer hotels. We checked out ~11:30 am and began our walk to Hotel du Commerce. Along the way, we stopped for lunch at Crepes-a-go-go (I had a buckwheat crepe filled with potatoes, eggs, and cheese with an Orangina to drink).

We checked into our new hotel (room #10), unpacked a little, then headed back towards Ile de la Cité to visit Sainte Chapelle. On the way, we visited the bouquinistes along the Seine – some of these little shop stalls had nice old prints for sale. Judy bought Carlos and me a beautiful paca and agouti print as our wedding present (thank you Judy!).

We continued onward past Notre Dame (so many tourists there now) to Sainte Chapelle. It was very beautiful inside both the lower and upper chapels (although part of the stained glass windows were covered with scaffolding).

We walked back to Ile St.-Louis and had ice cream at Berthillion (I had pear sorbet and almond crème – both delicious).

Next we walked to the Louvre and Angelina’s – it was a pretty long (but interesting) walk down the Rue de Rivoli! Finally, we made it to Angelina’s and despite the heat outside, we all had delicious hot chocolates (chocolat l’africain) – possibly the best hot chocolate ever!

After Angelina’s, we walked across the street to visit the Louvre. We wandered around the Egyptian and Greek antiquities sections mostly, taking time to admire Venus de Milo and the Nike of Samonthrace (Winged Victory). In the Louvre gift shop, I bought a little blue stuffed Egyptian hippo for Shannon. We returned to the hotel via the metro and took a little break before dinner.

We walked down the street for dinner at a local café (I had onion soup, camembert with bread, and a sweet white wine). Around 10:30 pm we returned to the hotel and hit the hay. We have another full day in Paris tomorrow!