2022-07-12: Paris Day 3

Today was a busy day. We woke up the kids at 9:00am this morning. We got cleaned up and headed to the restaurant in the lobby and had some breakfast before heading out of the day. Our first stop today was the Pantheon. The Pantheon contains paintings on canvas marouflé illustrating the life of Saint Geneviève and the epic story of the beginnings of both Christianity and the monarchy in France. It also has Foucault’s pendulum which was first installed in 1851 and removed then reinstalled in 1995. The pendulum demonstrated the Earth’s rotation.

From the Pantheon, we took our first adventure on the Paris Metro. We took the Metro to Arc de Triomphe. The Arc was started by Napoleon to celebrate his victories but was inaugurated in 1836 by King Louis-Philippe, who dedicated it to the armies of the Revolution and the Empire. The Unknown Soldier was buried at the base of the arch in 1921. We climbed the winding staircase up to the top of the Arc where we had a beautiful panoramic view of the area. We didn’t have a lot of time to enjoy the view because we had timed entry tickets to the Eiffel Tower.

We made our way back to the Metro and made our way to the Eiffel Tower. It was a busy place today. We had to line up for about 30 minutes in the security line. Those who didn’t have tickets were waiting over an hour in the line for the ticket office. Once we make it through the security checkpoint, we boarded the elevator to the 2nd floor of the tower. We had to wait in another line for about half an hour to board the next elevator that takes you to the top of the tower. There was a lot of waiting in lines at the tower. The views from the top of the tower were amazing. Amanda wasn’t too happy about being so high, but she made the best of it. We took our time enjoying the views before starting our descent. We returned to the second floor of the tower where the boys perused one of the gift shops and each bought a souvenir. Then we continued down to the 1st floor where we grabbed some water and bite to eat at the pizzeria on that level. We finally took the elevator back to ground level.

Our plan was to visit the Musee de l’Armee next but Amanda and Patrick were feeling pretty wiped after the busy day in the heat. But Michael really wanted to see it so we continued on with the plan. It was about a 20 minute walk from the Eiffel Tower. Patrick wasn’t very happy about it and was moping a bit while we visited the museum. It was getting late in the day so we only had about 30 minutes to explore the museum before it closed. The museum was a lot bigger than we expected it to be. It has exhibits on four different floors. We had time to check out one wing about the French resistance during World War II but that was about it. We headed to the building next door where the tomb of Napoleon is. It was quite the sight. After spending some time exploring the tomb, we made our way to the exit. As we were about to leave the grounds, the guards decided it was time to go home and locked the gates we came in through. There is a dry moat around the site so you can only enter and exit at certain places. We started wandering to find another exit. We ended up walking to the other side of the complex, which isn’t small, to find an open exit.

We made our way back to our hotel via the Metro again. Patrick did something to his leg on the way back and was starting to limp. We’re hoping he’ll be alright after resting it for the rest of the evening and getting a good night’s sleep. We made a quick stop for some gelato around the corner from our hotel before returning to the room.

We finally got hungry for dinner around 9:00pm. We saw a burger place a couple of doors down called Naked Burger that we decided to try. We discovered that they only server vegan burgers which isn’t our style. Patrick noticed another placed called Blend across the street so we headed over to take a look. Their menu consisted of burgers and fried chicken. We all ordered some burgers and they were very tasty. Definitely a place we’d go back to. We could hear a trumpet while we were eating in the restaurant. On our way out, we discovered it was coming from a four piece band playing on the street corner. We hung out and listened to a couple of their songs before throwing some change in their collection jar and returning to the hotel for the night. It was a good day.