This morning we started out at Sainte-Chapelle. That's the chapel Louis IX had built in the 1240's to house the Crown of Thorns. The complex where it's located used to be the palace on the Île de la Cité, now it's the Palais de Justice and as such, has typical courthouse-style security (metal detecors, etc...) to pass through before getting to the chapel. Our being first in line enabled us to have a few minutes in relative isolation in the chapel which was nice.
After Sainte-Chapelle, we walked over to Notre Dame because the girls had not been though it yet. We time our visit well, so we breezed straight in and it wasn't too crowded.
As we left, we walked around to the back to the Square Jean-XXIII in the back. It provides nice views of the cathedral's buttresses and some shady trees to sit under.
There's also a cool spinning play carousel that the girls had some fun with.
Square Jean-XXIII Carousel from Dan Douglas on Vimeo.
On the way back to the apartment for lunch, we hit paydirt! After looking every day we've been in France, we finally found some souvenirs with "Elodie" printed on them!
After a lunch break at the apartment, we headed out to the Louvre again. Today, we got audio guides for Katie and Charlie. We turned them loose to go explore together and they had a blast. I had some one-on-one time with Elodie and we found some exhibits. While Laura went on a mission to capture some images for her new company, Good Technology. (You can see those images, here.)
After dinner in the Louvre cafe and another round, Charlie, Katie and I closed the place down and then rejoined Laura and Elodie in the Tuileries Garden and closed it down, too. We took the metro back because it was late... golly was it crowded.
Another long day. Tomorrow is our last full day in Paris. The only thing left on our list that we haven't seen is the Orangerie.
