Day 3- Museums & Churches

Juston & I struck out on our own today. We left the apartment around 9:30 AM, and tried to get a head start on the heat...the highs were in the 80s today. We walked down the Champs Elysees, and it was much less crowded than the arbor day celebration.

At the end of the Champs, we stopped at a small cafe. The woman spoke French, but somehow knew just what we wanted. Juston got cafe american, I got chocolate steamed, and we both had chocolate croissants. It was so delicious. Just what we wanted.

We walked about 4.5 KM, which is a really long way. By the time we finally got to Notre Dame, we were exhausted. But, the cathedral was gorgeous. I took a ton of pics, and we got to attend part of the noon mass.

After Notre Dame, we crossed over to Saint Chappelle, which is a cathedral from the 1300's. 70% of the stained glass in this cathedral is still original. It was breathtaking. Again, I took a ton of pics and will post them. These stained glasses represents over 1,100 stories from the Bible.

We stopped briefly for a coca cola. Coke here is made with real sugar, which is fantastic.

Then, we decided since we activated our museum pass today, we'd head to the Orsay. We spent about 2 hours in the Orsay museum, and saw many paintings, most notably a Van Gogh self portrait, and a full wall portrait from Manet, which was a scandalous painter in the 1800's, who painted a picnic scene, depicting only one of the women totally nude, with everyone else dressed in the painting.

We were so exhausted but we marched on, and found the Louvre, with its beautiful, expansive lawns. We laid in the gardens for about 20 minutes, to regain our composure, as it was so hot that it was difficult to walk all that way. At last, Juston found the Apple Store at the Louvre. It was huge. He was like a kid in a candy store.

We picked up some to-go sushi at Sushi Store, and that was one of the most difficult transactions of the trip thus far, as the Asian guys only spoke Japanese or French, neither of which we are good at!

Now, it is about 9:30 PM, and it is pouring rain, cooling off the weather quite a bit. The rest of the week has highs positioned in the 60s instead of the 80s, which should be fantastic.

I'll post pics later tonight. I took several videos in Notre Dame & Saint Chappelle, and will post those too.

Tomorrow we will venture to Rodin, Napoleon's Tomb, and Pompidu. We also have 630 PM DINNER reservations at Tower 58, in the Eiffel, which should be amazing.

Goodnight world! Day 3 was tiring but a success.

xoxoxo

Ashley