Paris in a Day

Linny, Monica and I were off to Paris for a whirl wind tour of the city of Love.  Leaving Barnes at 7:00 AM we were in Paris by 12 noon our time and in the Louvre by 1:30.  Lin and Monica gazed upon the Mona Lisa and the Winged Victory while I trounced around seeing many masterworks I had missed on my previous trip to the Louvre.  After a beer and pommes frites (that French Fries to you and me) under the Eiffel Tower, we took the lift to the top and gazed all around Paris.  We found a nice restaurant which served escargot (on Linny lists of musts in Paris) and had a lovely French dinner with, of course, French wine.  Up early the next morning we had croissants and café au Lait (on Linny's list of musts in Paris) and were off to the Paris Catacombs http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catacombs_of_Paris.  The Catacombs are a pile of bones and sculls collected from many Paris cemeteries during the 1700’s when they had become grossly (no pun intended) over populated.  There existed a series of tunnels underneath Paris where limestone had been quarried to make many of the building, including Notre Dame in the 1100’s so they simply moved the bones into the spaces under the city where they where artistically stacked in patterns and memorials: A bit macabre but really amazing.   

We were then off to Notre Dame, The Champs Elysees, Arc de Triomphe, stopping for a leisurely lunch of French onion soup (on Linny’s list of musts in Paris), mussels and frites, then finishing with a river cruise up and down the Seine River taking in the sights by water. 

We were back home by 9:00 PM Tuesday.