How far can you walk?

When we started out for our last day in Paris, I do not think we had any intentions of walking all over the place.  It seemed that it would be closer to walk from place to place than use the metro.  See, it was our last day, and now we were fitting in things we decided to do if there was time, and therefore they may not have been conveniently located to each other.

Good thing I started my day of with a delicious breakfast.  I was enjoying the cheese at the hotel, so I had to have more.  I also liked this plain yogurt, which I made even better by adding a little jam.  On this day I went with apricot.

 

Then we went back to the bakery next to the hotel and picked up more goodies.

 

I had a giant cinnamon roll, which was too much and I admit to feeding some to the birds.

 

Ryan had something, that I think had lemon inside.

 

The first stop was to the Hard Rock cafe.  If you remember from my trip in June, I collect shirts from the Hard Rock.  It’s just something I do.  But the Hard Rock in Paris was not near anything we were doing, so it was squeezed in at the end.  It was however easy to get to from the hotel because it was on the same metro line that was by the hotel. 

When we were walking to the Hard Rock we spotted these little narrow halls filled with antique shopping and cafes.

 

 

Then we got to the Hard Rock just before the major lunch rush.

 

I am happy to announce the newest t-shirt in my collection.

 

I know, who eats at the Hard Rock, much less when you are in another country with all that great food, but we decided since we had gone all the way out there, we wanted it to be for more than just a shirt.  Well, the meal was not that bad, but we were not really hungry, so neither of us finished the meal.

Ryan had the 10 oz burger.

 

I had the veggie burger, which was surprisingly good.  I liked the zucchini strips and sauce.

 

Since we were across town from the next stop, we took the metro to get to the Arc de Triomphe.  We really wanted to go here, but on Day 1, the race was coming in, so it was too busy.  Then it got pushed to the back of our plans because it was in the opposite direction from other things we were seeing.

 

Because it is in the middle of the round about, you enter this from underground.  The good news was that it was on the Museum Pass and we could skip the ticket line.

 

This monument has a lot of stairs to climb, so our walking adventure for the day starts here.

Once upstairs, we looked at some of the history.

 

They have a camera that looks down below and you can watch the little tourists mingling below.  Too bad they do not know they are on camera.  We actually watched a woman beating her child.  It was awful, but I will admit, it was hard to tell how hard she was hitting and pushing him/her because they were so small.  You could see her push the child, and you could see her grab the child by the arm and pull him, but then this lady seemed fine when she walked off with a man.  Oh, but she did leave the kid behind when she left with him, so I guess that was a problem.  It was really weird to watch this.

 

 

 

Here are the views from the top.  This was the first day we had with sunny skies and warmer temperatures.

 

 

I will also add that I bought I Hard Rock bear because he was too cute, and here he is, just sunning, not trying to jump, I promise.

 

 

The Eiffel Tower in the distance, which I did zoom in on to get a nice picture.

 

Like I said, I was tasked with photographing myself self-portrait style with the Eiffel Tower in the back.

 

This is facing Le Defense, which are all modern buildings in Paris, and is a business district.

 

 

Back at the bottom we took a look at the flame.

 

 

Here starts the walk-a-thon of Paris Summer 2010.  We headed down Champs Elysees, which is a major street and where all the high end shopping can be found.

 

Like I said, high end shopping.  I had to pose here for a picture because last fall my grandfather emailed me a picture he took of my grandmother standing here. 

 

The we kept walking, and walking, and walking.  Mind you, the next destination, the Musee de Orsay. is not exactly near the Arc de Triomphe.  We had a map and were well aware of this from the start, but we went for it anyway.  We figured if we really needed to we could get on the metro.  Needing to take the metro also has to do with how time is, because walking can take much longer, so you do lose time this way.  With no other real plan, we had the time, so we did not expect it to be an issue.

Here are some buildings we passed on the way.

 

One is the Grand Palace and the other is the Petite Palace.

 

 

 

We eventually had to cross the Seine River.

 

Here I am on the bridge.

 

 

This was Napoleon’s tomb, from another angle.  At this point, we discovered we may not be that far from the hotel since we had walked from the tomb before to the hotel.

 

This is the National Assembly, I think.

 

Finally, we made it to the Orsay Museum.  More art!

 

They do not let you take pictures inside, but it was a very nice museum.  This museum picks up where the Lourve ends.  Here we saw paintings by many famous painters, including Van Gogh, Matisse, Renoir, Monet, Manet and Degas.

After the continued walking inside the museum, we sat outside and enjoyed the weather.

Then we got up to walk back to the hotel.  On the trip home, we stopped for some ice cream, which wound up being more like sorbet.

 

I took some pictures on the walk home.  I thought this looked funny, like maybe the building next to the tall one may have fallen down.  It just seemed too bare to have been in the original state.

 

We reached the military museum, and we knew the room was not too far off.  We stopped here too and watched people walk by and enjoyed the nice cool breeze.

 

Ryan had overheard the woman at the hotel desk mention that the restaurant, Le Bosquet, across the street from the hotel, was a good restaurant.  Easy enough!  We went there for dinner.

 

We had already had a white wine, a red wine and champagne, so we went with a rose for dinner.

 

Again, Ryan gave the onion soup a try, but again, it did not compare to the soup he had by Notre Dame.

 

I started with a very nice tomato and mozzarella salad.

 

Bread, which is so good in Paris.

 

Ryan ordered a grilled ham and cheese sandwich.  It was covered with melted cheese, and this thing was huge.

 

For my entree (which is the word I noticed they use for appetizer), I went with smoked salmon and dill, with a dill cream sauce on the side.  This was really good.

 

After dinner, we walked over to the Eiffel tower for our last night and one more chance to enjoy this romantic view.

 

 

 

I know I have so many pictures of the Eiffel Tower, but I just loved how it looked from all angles and with the lighting.

 

This time, we crossed over to the other side, heading towards the Trocodero.

 

This is the backside of the Trocodero.  There was a lot of action going on over there, so we decided instead to stay over where it was a little more quiet and just enjoy the view.

 

There are two carousels by the Eiffel Tower, and they looked so magical at night.

 

Once we spotted this snack cart, it was all down hill!

 

We love ice cream and soft serve always catches our attention, so we were more than happy to grab a cone before sitting on a bench and relaxing.

 

There you have it, our last full day and night in Paris.  It was so nice to finally be able to get away with Ryan.  I have always wanted to go to Paris and I am glad I finally had the chance, especially because I was able to be there with Ryan.  I am also very glad that even though he was sick, he was still able to enjoy the trip.

QUESTIONS:  Do you like smoked salmon?  When you are on vacation, do you find yourself walking a lot?  Have you ever been sick on vacation?