New Years Eve......in Paris!



 Our first stop for Day 2 was the Louvre.  We lucked out since we took the Metro in, we came into it from underneath. We walked over to buy the museum pass (NO LINE!) and then went right in! When we came out, we saw the line going up the stairs and waaaaayyyyy outside.  We had thought we would have to wait as well, but boy we were lucky.  So we walked around, mostly just going to see the Mona Lisa. Honestly, it wasn't THAT cool. It's smaller than you would probably think and there are SO many people trying to take pictures that it is crazy.  

 Next we headed to Notre Dame. Yes, it was cool.  Inside, I kept singing, "God Help the Outcasts" from the Disney movie. 



Inside Notre Dame

  After Notre Dame, I was getting hungry again.  We saw a crepe shop right next door and stopped in.  Yum!  We both got a nutella banana crepe.

 Next we headed over to La Conciergerie. This was a prison where many were beheaded during the French Revolution. Marie Antoinette was also held prisoner here. They even had a recreation of her in her cell. It was a bit creepy looking.



This is the Salle des Gens d'Armes, thought to be one of Europe's oldest medieval halls where members of the royal household would dine. This is the big room you come into when you first enter the Conciergerie.

Then we headed over to the Saint-Chappelle line. We did have to wait about an hour to get in here. It has the most stained glass of any building in the word. And we learned from Rick Steeves (We downloaded some things on iTunes to listen to on the way) that it was built to house the Crown of Thorns that Christ wore on the cross.  This was all done by Louis IX who paid something like 150,000 for the Crown of Thorns, but only spent 40,000 for Saint-Chappelle to house it.  It was really pretty inside though. 

At one point in all our walking around Paris, we saw a Paul's sandwich shop.  I held Paul in my hand!

 I guess the next few pictures are self-explanatory. This was our last stop. By the way, it was SO cold all day. I was freezing!  And by the time we left (we went back to the hotel for a few hours before heading back out for New Years) the Metro was packed!  When we first got on, I was held up by all the pressing bodies. I couldn't reach a pole to hold on to, so I just had to be held up by all the others. It was crazy.  The Eiffel Tower WAS cool though.  And we did go back to it at night.  The city of Paris, however, didn't set off any fireworks this year.  There were several set off just by random people though.  And the tower is lit up and then sparkles on the hour. It was definitley worth seeing. (I could have done without all the crazy drunks though! Everyone was drinking, which meant that people were peeing in the streets, attacking cars that drove by, we even heard of someone in our group getting thrown up on. Gross.)

One last crepe stop!

We left the next morning, and of course, our ride home on the bus took forever!  The ferry crossing we were supposed to be on was canceled, so we had to wait an hour for the next one.  We bought some super yummy panini's on the ferry though, and that was worth it! The kids were excited to see us too.  All in all a great trip and we saw all the highlights that we had wanted to see.