Paris - day 2 (Arc de Triomphe, Champs-Elysees, Louvre)

On our 2nd day in Paris, we slept in and started our morning slowly, since we were still jet lagged and quite tired from our first day of sightseeing.  We walked to a bakery near the hotel and started our morning off with French pastries - croissants and a chocolate filled pastry.  Then we hopped on the metro to head to the Arc de Triomphe, the famous arch in Paris at the end of Champs-Elysees.  It started raining as soon as we stepped off the metro, of course, but luckily we'd pack a compact umbrella.

The Arc de Triomphe is surrounded by a huge, bustling, crazy traffic circle that has 5-6 lanes of traffic going in and out of 6 major streets surrounding the arch.  To make things more confusing, there are no lines painted on the circle, so there aren't technically "lanes" for people to drive in.  Rather than subject pedestrians to crossing the street in the midst of that craziness, they built tunnels under the streets to and from the arch.

After taking pictures of the arch from the front and underneath, we decided to wait in the (very short) line to walk up the stairs all the way to the viewing platform at the top.  It was 234 steps to the top, and since it was a very cloudy (low clouds), windy, rainy day, the (single file) stairs and viewing platform were not very crowded.  We spent 45 mins to an hour on the viewing platform, then walked back down the stairs and took some pictures of the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier, which is underneath the Arc de Triomphe.  They keep a flame burning all the time at the head of this tomb.

Here are some pictures of the Arc de Triomphe.  It was so cloudy/foggy that the top of the Eiffel Tower couldn't be seen, as you'll see in the pictures...

After we visited the Arc de Triomphe, we walked down the most famous street in Paris, the Champs-Elysees.  The street is 8 lanes across and VERY crowded with both cars and pedestrians.  The sidewalks are very wide (the width of a regular road) to accommodate lots of pedestrians.  We window shopped our way along the street, stopping in a mega store to pick up our museum tickets.  They've got restaurants, high-end stores, cinemas, car dealerships, hotels and apartments...pretty much everything along this street.  And, since it was just after Christmas, there was even a large Christmas market set up at one end of the avenue.  The street itself, from the Arc de Triomphe to the Louvre gardens at the end, is about 2 miles long.  The Christmas market was towards the end, at the less busy end of the street, and we took advantage of the space to get some food (fresh cheese/meat sandwich for me, sausage for Mario, and the standard Nutella crepe for dessert) and rest our feet for a bit.  (And just a side note about the food...if I could eat sandwiches the way they make them over there, I would eat sandwiches every day...fresh baked baguette, gourmet fresh cut cheese, with salami and/or prosciutto...yum.) 

After our quick stop for food, we continued our walk through the gardens at the end of Champs-Elysees and went to the Louvre.  As with most Paris landmarks, there are huge lines, even on a cold December day.  However, we'd bought tickets in advance, with help from my dad, so we got to bypass the entire line and go in the line/door marked "persons with tickets".  There was literally NO line for us.  Once we got inside, it was packed and bustling.  We waited in line to check our coats, and then also waited to get an audio tour device, which Mario used throughout the museum.  

The Louvre is HUGE, and very confusing to navigate.  There are 3 wings, like 3 parts of a letter T, and each wing has multiple floors.  Some floors you can't access by stairwells on the end, and some you can, while other things have multiple rooms set up in what seems like a maze.  I know we didn't get to see even half of what the museum has, and we were there over 4 hours.  We did, however, get to see Leonardo da Vinci's Mona Lisa painting, and we also saw Michelangelo's "Prisoners" statues and the famous Venus de Milo statue.  Some parts of the museum (Mona Lisa, French paintings room) were packed, while other parts (ancient Egypt/Greece, early European statues) were mostly empty.  One of my favorite parts of the museum was the "Medieval Louvre" part, where you can see parts of the original Louvre building, which was built as a fortress in the 12th century.  

Pictures from the Louvre:

After the Louvre we took the Metro back to our hotel and rested for a bit before going out to dinner.  We went to a restaurant right next to our hotel.  Mario had a plate of various meats and sauerkraut, while I had goat cheese ravioli.  They were both delicious.  And of course, we had fresh cheese and bread.