July 31, 2013…. Later that day…

Today we arrived in Paris.  Rita did a great job of negotiating her way through the streets of Paris to our hotel on the Place de la Vosges.  We are staying at the Pavillion de la Reine.  We have a nice room overlooking the courtyard.  The room has a main floor and a loft for the bedroom.  The bath is on the first floor and the toilette is right inside the door to the hotel room!  Seems a little odd to us, but it is not the first time our toilette has been in another room other than the bathroom.  Tomorrow it is supposed to be 95 degrees, so we made the best of our first day in Paris, since it is only 77 degrees today. We started walking at 12:00 noon.  We saw the Eiffel Tower, Notre Dame, the Seine, and the Pont des Arts which was used in the last show of Sex in the City, where Mr. Big followed Carrie to Paris and finally told her “she was the one”. The bridge is covered in locks, so many that you think you can’t even find a place to put your lock on it.  It is a “fad” that is taking over Europe. In 2010, one guy removed all the locks on this bridge in ONE night and made a beautiful sculpture out of them.  After a quick lunch at Chez Andre, we walked to the Champs Elysees, saw the Arc de Triomphe, and then took a taxi to Sacre Couer.  It is a beautiful white church sitting on Montmartre with a view of all of Paris spread out below.  We arrived back at our hotel at 7:30 PM after one long day of sightseeing.  I immediately fell asleep and Rita woke me up at 10:00PM and said she was hungry and could not go to bed hungry (swear she has a bottomless pit) so we went out to a small cafe and had dinner.  We walked the streets of Paris after dinner until 12:45 AM to see what the nightlife was like in our neighborhood.  Thus, ended the first day in the City of Lights.  Lights out I guess.  Tomorrow we have arranged a private tour of The Louvre.  Hope to get an art appreciation class 101 done in two hours!!! 

We miss you and love you, Norm & Rita

PARIS, FRANCE …. “These are a few of our favorite things”….. get it, still carrying on our Salzburg theme… LOL!

Statue in front of the entrance to our hotel.

Paris Water Fountain

Our hotel in Place de Vosges

Here we are on the Pont des Arts (the LOVE BRIDGE)

Lots of small cars here

Here’s one for sale. Good condition for an old car.

Normal street in Paris without trees. Most of them have some trees though.

First glimpse of the Eiffel Tower

Beautiful daytime view of the Eiffel Tower

Arc de Triomphe – You wouldn’t believe what we had to do to get this picture. DODGE PARIS TRAFFIC!!!!

Maybe our new apartment???

Place de la Republic

Eiffel Tower at night

The real Moulin Rouge

Celebrated our last night in Paris at the Moulin Rouge show. The acrobatics were our favorite parts of the show. Amazing…

Sacre Couer – This is at the top of Montmartre.

View of Paris from Sacre Couer

Beautiful Notre Dame

Inside are amazing sculptures everywhere

This is “THE ROSE” window. Picture doesn’t do this justice, though.

Cathedral of Notre Dame, Paris

It is so big, from the front we could only get the top portion in our picture

Such a beautiful church