We visited Versailles on Saturday. The train line directly to the Palace was out for just the weekend so it took us 2+ hours to get there. It was a bit chilly with the wind but well worth the visit. We'd like to go back during the spring or summer when there's more color in the gardens. On the way back we stopped by Notre Dame and later the Eiffel Tower to get the night shots there.
On Sunday we went to the Musee d'Orsay and the Louvre. The d'Orsay had a lot of recognizable, modern art from Monet, Degas, Rodin. I particularly liked the sculptures...Kim loved the Degas and the ballet dancers. We tried to do the Catacombs but found out (once we got there) that they closed for Sunday -- maybe because of St. Martin's Day. So we went back to the Louvre. Kim & I did the Da Vinci Code tour of the museum -- yeah, a little touristy (and according to Tony "not cultured"). But the Louvre is so big it provided a nice thread of Renaissance art to look at and we were able to look at some of the less famous pieces in detail that we would have overlooked otherwise.
We left the climbing for Monday -- we thought things would be less busy. We did Sainte Chapelle (beautifaul stained glass) and Notre Dame in the morning. After a mini-scare involving Kim's rings, we walked up to the first two platforms of the Eiffel Tower -- the 2nd platform was high enough for me!! Great views of the city -- it's massive. We had a hot chocolate and mailed some postcards to our family from the 1st platform of the tower. Our last stop was the Arc de Triomphe and the Champs Elysees. Well worth climbing up for a different (and equally good) view of Paris.
Embedded in some of our photo galleries are what we feel are some good panoramic shots -- one at Versailles, 2 in the Notre Dame section, and one of the Louvre at night.
