Day 41 - Paris: Orangerie and Eiffel Tower at night

11:59pm - Paris

Today was our last day in Paris and our last day before flying home.  Hard to believe that six weeks has gone by.  We slept in and then spent the morning getting organized, packing, discarding things that dont need to come home.

After lunch, we went to the Musée de l’Orangerie.  The main attraction there is a series of water lily paintings that Monet did.  We had visited his gardens a week ago, so it was good to see how he chose to point the ponds and lilies we saw there.

After the Orangerie, we went over to the carnival at Tuileries Garden.  The kids did this giant water ball ride and some bungie jumping.  It was a little surreal to do look up from this carnival and see wings of the Louvre, but that's the way the French roll.

By that time, it was time for dinner.  We went to Au Petit Tonneau and had a lovely dinner -- and even got a discount because we'd booked through La Fourchette.

After dinner, we walked to the Eiffel Tower.  We had 10:30pm tickets for the elevator ride to the 2nd floor.  It was nice to skip the line and just walk on.

By the time we left the Eiffel Tower, it was after 11pm and we were all a little tired.  We rode the Metro home and you can see in our faces that it's definitely time for bed.

The cab to take us to the airport comes tomorrow morning at 8:30am.  You might think it's crazy to stay out till midnight the night before a morning cab ride to the airport a day of flying, but that's how we roll. It's going to be a long day of traveling.  Hopefully without much to write about.

Day 40 - Paris: Sainte-Chapelle, Notre Dame ...

11:30pm - Paris

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.