Today was the first full day spent in Paris. The goal for today was to purchase a 2-Day Paris Museum Pass and follow Rick Steves’ Old Paris Tour in the Morning, then visit the Louve and the O’rsay if time permitted in the afternoon. Of course there would be stops for Cafe’ aui laite, biere, lunch and maybe some shopping.

In the Rick Steves’ Paris 2009 (MUST HAVE) you should start around 9am and alot about 4 hrs for the Paris walking tour, thus asumes your staying in Paris which I am not, needless to say my day started a but later after a train ride from Versailles to the St. Michel train stop which I beleive is a the heart of ‘touristy’ Paris.

Our first stop was Notre Dame, luckily it was a Thursday so the crowds were pretty light. This place was almost surreal, the stone architecture is something that must be experienced in person to truly appreciate what man has accomplished. The Church took about 200 years to complete and one you enter the door you can see why.  The one thing that stood out the most to me besides the sheer size of course was all the staindglass… It’s everywhere, it’s ornate and it has survived time, wars and mankind. I think you could spend all day in Notre Dame taking it all in but we have more to do.

Notre Dame

Next up was the tower at Notre Dame, you can purchase a museum pass here, but only do this if the lines are short, it’ll cost you 32euro and is worth every euro cent. This pass will get you into most every site on the tour and most museums have special entrances where you can bypass the crowds which is very handy at the Louve! The tower has a long spiral staircase which first takes you to a gift shop where you have to hang out for a few minutes to let the group in front of you climb down the stairs. The. Once the guide let’s you leave the gift shop you get to walk up an even narrower spiral staircase to the overlook. The views up here were really nice, you could see quite a bit of the city and also check out one of the bells. Thankfully this particular bell was not in use!

View from the Notre Dame Tower

After Notre Dame and the tower we headed over to the crypt, even with the museum pass this was not a very exciting exhibit.  You get to see partial ruins of Paris.. Think lots of dirt…

We headed over to the Deportation Memorial, which was closed for lunch. Ile St. Louis was full of shops but nothing I was dying to see.  Next on the list was St. Severin so we briefly covered the West Bank Book Sellers, where you can find old issues of Playboy from the 60’s. St. Severin was amazing as well… The there was only an old couple praying in the church and the staind glass was just as ornate as Notre Dame.  These stops landed us in the Latin Quarter where we stumbled upon a demonstration of some sorts. I found out later that it was some sort of labor disagreement protest.

St. Severin

After lunch we went to see Sainte-Chapelle, a very nice but extremly small chapel. Th conciergie was another location that is interesting to see Marie Antonionette’s cell, but if you  are short on time or want to spend more time at another spot then you could quickly run through this one.

The best thing about  Cité “Metropolitain” Métro Stop was that it was next to the Pink Panthers office. I almost missed Place Dauphine except I looked up at a street sign to figure out where I was. Finally  Statue of Henry IV allowed for a decent view of the river and a part of the city.

By this time all the museums were closed so we headed for Dinner at a yummy Thai restaurant in Versailles. Then to bed so the dogs could rest for Friday.

Thoughts…