We spent 3 days in Paris for our weekend away. We actually left on a Wed afternoon and returned Saturday. We had planned to do something special to celebrate our 40th birthdays (Mark's was in Sept and mine is in Dec). It's great how you can go to these awesome places and it's a couple of dollars to fly there. Much cheaper than driving. We had a great time visiting all the sites of interest. The weather was great but it did turned cold our last night and day there. We stayed in a hotel that was close to many of the old town sites.





There was a Starbucks a couple blocks away from our hotel which we were delighted to find. We went here each morning for breakfast before heading out for the day.
















We went to the Eifel Tower which ended up not being anything like what I thought it would be. No romantic moments...just standing in line for close to an hour in icy winds just to get a ticket to get in. Then another hour standing in line for even colder winds to get up to the elevator to get to the top. After 20 minutes in this line, we left. We didn't want to miss a concert and it was getting too late. Besides, we were so cold that we could hardly stand it. It was definitely impressive from the bottom. We got there when it was still light out and stayed till after dusk so it was all lit up in lights. Very massive and very pretty.





















Napleon III Apartments in the Louvre Museum




















One of the highlights was attending a small concert in this awesome old cathedral called Sainte Chapelle. We got to see Vivaldi's Four Seasons. There were 3 violins, 1 viola, 1 bass, 1 cello and a harpsichord. It was so amazing to see and hear.



Lots of moments sight seeing...
















We visited the Notre Dame, the Louvre, the Orsay Museum, and a number of very old churches. We stumbled across the "meridian line" mentioned in the Da Vinci Code book in the Saint Sulpice Church. Interesting...there was an article posted in the church stating the falsity of the statements made in a "popular book" referring to this church. We haven't actually read the book but it's been discussed in different classes at school so the kids knew what we were talking about.



















If you look at the center of this you'll see a line that is made of brass running from the top all the way down to the floor and along the floor to the center of the church. There's a window in the opposite wall in a stained glass window where the light can shine through and it touches this brass line showing some scientific discovery that I can't remember at the moment.


The majority of the time we spent walking and I know we put on many, many miles through the streets of Paris. We saw the Mona Lisa...much smaller in real life, the statue of Venus, paintings by all the famous people I had ever heard of. I had no idea that museums could ever be as big as the Louvre...you could literally spend days there and not actually see everything. There was everything from Egyptian mummies, to paintings, scultpures, artifacts of old, crown jewels, Napoleon III apartment which were covered in gold, tapestries that covered the walls and floor to ceiling paintings. Quite amazing...we just wish we could have understood French as most of the signs describing things were in French.


In front of Notre Dame