Paris, France Honeymoon – Day 3 – 7.20.11

Day 3 was another long, tiring day of the honeymoon trip in Paris, France. Kristen and I went to The Louvre, Jardin Des Tuileries, walked up on the Avenue des Champs-Élysées to the Arc de Triomphe, Les Invalides and the Dome Church. We also walked to the Eiffel Tower so yeah, the day was a bit tiring for us.

The Louvre was the first stop where we spent a few hours there. We waited in line when it opened, thankfully on the much shorter line since we had a Paris Museum Pass for 4 days. You know that line scene in Euro Trip where they show this long ass line? Well that’s definitely not a lie. My question is why don’t people either use the other entrance on Rue De Rivoli or get a Paris Museum Pass and skip that line. Once we got into the museum, it felt like Disney and running to Splash Mountain so you don’t have to wait in line later. Everybody was going towards the Mona Lisa, including Kristen and I. we wanted to get that done and see the Winged Victory of Samothrace as well. We succeeded in that, and saw a lot more after that. You wouldn’t believe the amount of people around where Mona Lisa was. With all the museums that I’ve been in, The Louvre is definitely the best one I’ve ever been in. The thing is massive! You can’t see everything in one day.

After the Louvre, we strolled through the Jardin Des Tuileries and were on the hunt for some food. Believe it or not, unless you know where to look or go, trying to find good Paris food is hard. A lot of the food felt like shitty diner food, or stuff that we didn’t want to eat. We grabbed a crepe with nutella just to hold us over while we walked up to the Arc. It was lightly raining on and off as we walked up, and Kristen was shopping. I sat outside and people watched. The male clothing stores in Paris either consist of fancy expensive suits or few mainstream stores like H&M or Gap. I was trying to find a Fall jacket to buy since I was sick of wearing the same black hoody every day. Kristen was beyond sick of looking at her Cape Cod hoody she brought on the trip. Nothing like screaming to everyone you’re a tourist haha. The one bonus to walking on the Champs-Élysées was going to Ladurée Royale, the best macaroons I’ve ever had! The vanilla ones were the best.

We eventually made our way up to the Arc and I was impressed at how big it was. It was drizzling and the line was insanely long so we didn’t go up it. Kristen and I ended up walking over to the Dome Church area to see Napoleon’s Tomb. The church was interesting to see, and the inside looked cool. Napoleon’s tomb was kind of funny how big the tomb was. Clearly he had a Napoleon complex even when he died. Since we were sort of near the Eiffel Tower, we decided to walk over there. We still haven’t used the Metro at this point because the stops seemed too sporadic to me. So you can tell we were beyond tired from walking at this point. We made it to the Eiffel Tower and got harassed by all the stupid “merchants” trying to pawn off their mini Eiffel Towers, and other trinkets for rubes. We didn’t feel like going up the tower because it really was of no interest to us. It’s like going up the Empire State Building, which I never did either. “Where’s the Empire State Building, oh wait..we’re on it.”

While we were there, we saw some European hipsters there in animal costumes and figured it would be funny to take our picture with them. Figured it would make some of our photos more interesting haha. We decided to take the RER C train back to Saint Michel area, only the train terminated at Les Invalides. Which meant more walking! Grr. I think this was our breaking point of walking and took the Metro from now on, just sucked that the RER C line was being worked on or something that week we were there.

We eventually got to our area and had some food outside. Nice breathe of fresh air, I mean cigarettes. The one downfall of eating outside is that’s where everyone smokes. You may enjoy the nice night but then the cigarettes come out and ruins everything. I tried not to let it bother me too much considering I was expecting it. Everyone smokes in Europe, even babies. No, I’m kidding. Well infants at least.

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Tags: Arc de Triomphe, arrondissements, Avenue des Champs-Élysées, church, Dome Church, Eiffel Tower, france, French, honeymoon, Jardin Des Tuileries, Ladurée Royale, Latin Quarter, Les Invalides, mona lisa, museum, nikon d300, pantheon, paris, Paris bridges, Paris food, Paris locks, Paris photographs, Saint Germain, travel photography, trip photography, trips, Winged Victory of Samothrace