Day 16 -- Paris Sunny 75º
This was our last day! Boooooo! But Disneyland took so much out of us that we decided to sleep in, just a little bit. We were out of the hotel by 9 and had our traditional breakfast at the Pomme de Pain. We had an airport shuttle scheduled to pick us up at the hotel at 3:15 p.m., so we had about half the day remaining for a little more sightseeing. The two biggies that were still on the list were the Louvre Museum and the Eiffel Tower. I felt like it would be silly to try to do both, so Kathryn, Molly, Dawn (my sister) and I walked to the Louvre; while Steve and his son hopped in a cab to the Eiffel Tower. Molly's mission was to see the Mona Lisa, and Kathryn's was to see the Venus de Milo.
As we entered the outer courtyard of the Louvre Museum:
The famous glass pyramid in the main courtyard:
Let me stress once again the importance of getting venue tickets or a Paris Pass before you actually arrive in Paris. When we got to the Louvre at about 10 a.m., the line to purchase tickets was already 90 minutes long. At the Eiffel Tower, the line was 2 hours long. However, in the event that you arrive at the Louvre courtyard
sans tickets, you do have an alternative. It's not exactly a "skip the line" option; it's more of a "find a shorter line" option. From the courtyard, you can walk one block to Rue de Rivoli to 99 Rivoli. It's the entrance to a large shopping complex and at the end of the complex is the Louvre's lobby and ticket sales. It will take 5-10 minutes to walk to the entrance of the shopping center, another 5 minutes to get to the lobby (you have to go through security, so it might take longer), and then however long it takes to stand in the ticket line. But it will
definitely be quicker than waiting in the courtyard line. In either case, the tickets will cost 15€ each.
Here's the museum lobby where you can buy your tickets. It's under the pyramid in the main courtyard:
Once we got into the museum, we (along with about 5,000 other people) made a beeline for the Mona Lisa. The room in which the Mona Lisa is hung has many other works in it, as well. However, every person in the room was pushing his way to try to get as close as possible to the Mona Lisa. It was barely-controlled mayhem. Why they don't simply put up some barriers to form a queue is a mystery to me. Nobody can move in the room. If they made people go through a structured line, it would be so much easier for everybody. But we did get to see it (from a bit of a distance) and so Molly's mission was accomplished.
Proof that we saw the Mona Lisa (shot with my cell phone, forgive me!):
And the Venus de Milo:
The rest of our time there was phenomenal. There's obviously just too many things to see in one day, let alone the 4 hours that were available to us. Even if there was no art in the museum, the architecture of the building itself would be worth the visit. We absolutely loved the paintings and sculpture, but I admit that we got a little lost when it was finally time to find our way out.
Some random shots from our time there:
Is this the Louvre or Hogwarts??
We left the museum just after 2 p.m., giving ourselves a half hour to get back to the hotel and then another half hour to grab something quick for lunch before heading to the airport. Well, "quick" turned out to be a relative term, as our take-out from the little family-run pasta restaurant we stopped at took forever! But we eventually got our order, met up with Steve and Joe, who climbed to the first landing of the Eiffel Tower and got to hear about their journey. And we made it back in time to meet our shuttle. The only problem was:
Our
last Adventure After Disney!
The shuttle company sent the wrong sized-van for us. With our bags, we were not all going to fit. Our driver called the office and they had no bigger vans available for us. So, Kath and I decided that we would take the Metro to the airport and meet up with the rest of our group at the Delta ticket counter. Thankfully, the ticket machine at the Metro stop had an option for "airports" right on the main screen, so it turned out to be mercifully easy to buy our tickets. We arrived at the platform and I checked the overhead screen to see when the right train would arrive, and I noticed that there were 2 airport trains for each non-airport train at that platform. I took that as a good sign and when the next airport train stopped, we boarded. I later realized that the reason that there were two airport trains, was that one of them was an express directly to the airport, and one was a local that stopped at each station along the way. Thankfully, and by sheer luck, Kath and I had boarded the express. So we arrived quickly and easily at De Gaulle airport and met our group, just as we'd planned.
The flight home was entirely uneventful and our shuttle picked us up and delivered us to our door without incident.
Thanks so much for following along throughout our trip. I'll post more pictures later.
