Day 13

Our last full day in Paris and we are on a mission to see as many things as we can.

We started early with the Louvre Art Museum. I knew that this place was big, but I wasn't prepared with just HOW big it is! We stayed for over 2 hours and only saw the Italian Paintings, Italian Sculptures, and Greek Sculptures. You could spend a week in there an not see everything. But we did see some of the more important pieces, such as the Mona Lisa and the Venus of Milo. I was really taken aback by the different levels of texture even the ancient Greeks were able to capture in their stone sculptures. That just doesn't come through in photographs.

Next we had a quick lunch before heading over to the Notre Dame Cathedral. As with the other Cathedrals, you stand there awe-struck that people lacking the technology we have available today were able to achieve such architectural masterpieces! Here are a few pics...

After that, we did a little shopping and then hopped on the Metro and headed to the Arc de Triomphe. Great experience, although we opted not to go up on the Arc. We had seen so many sights from above that we didn't feel we needed another 9 Euro view. It really does dwarf the Arc in Barcelona and is very beautiful. On a side note, almost every "major" monument that we saw these two weeks was under some kind of construction. Apparently France has a major campaign going on to do restoration work on their monuments....go figure!

We walked the Champs-Elysees for a while and were totally worn out! Check out this cool futuristic car in the Peugot dealership!

So, we hopped on the metro back toward the hotel. Once there, we looked for a place for dinner, and then went to the hotel for a little rest. Had a nice dinner and walk down to the Bastille, then back to the hotel to pack up and get ready to leave. Headed back home in the morning!