October 25th arrived in Paris, France. PARIS IN A DAY.

Arrived in Paris, France at 11:00 am. (8 hour difference from the U.S.A-it was 3 am in the states). We slept ok on the plane.  When we arrived to Paris (Charles De Gaul airport).  We were going to have the luggage stay at the airport and go straight to Rome, which would mean that we would not get cleaned up after our flight and just see as much of Paris in 1 day as we could.  We decided to get our luggage and go to the hotel and freshen up before we toured Paris (this was my idea).  We waited 45 min at the airport for them to bring us our luggage. We took a shuttle to the hotel (Park Inn) and freshened up, took the train into Paris and  started on our own walking tour of Paris. The sky's were pretty grey  when we started out.  We got in a cloud burst of rain when we got to "Notre Dom" then the sun came out and it cleared up quickly.  After that it was beautiful as you can see by our pictures.

there are a lot of different styled bridges in Paris like this one.  The architecture is old and beautiful.


This bridge was seen in the movie "sex and the city".

                                                                                                       

This is the Louvre at night

The Louvre originally was a royal palace, it became the largest Museum in France at the end of the 18th century.  It is located in the heart of Paris.  There are about 35.000 objects on display, spread out over three wings of the former palace.  It is the size of 11 football fields and has diverse collections ranging from the antiquity up to the mid 19th century.  A large par of the collection consists of European paintings and sculptures.  Other rooms contain Roman, Egyptian, Greek and Oriental art.  There is a section with 'Objects d'Art', where objects such as clocks, furniture, china and tapestries are displayed.  Some of the other famous art are the Venus of Milo, the Nike of Samothrake, the Dying slave by Michelangelo and of cours Leonardo da Vinci's Mona Lisa.

The most recent addition to the Louvre was the construction of the glass pyramid, (this was the place for the movie the DiVinci Code). which functions as the museums main entrance.  It was built in 1989, the pyramid allows the sunlight to come in on the underground floor.

The Louvre is open everyday except for Tuesday.  Unfortunately, that was the day we were in Paris, so we did not get to spend anytime inside.  They say it takes about 4-5 days to see everything.  So maybe, Bill and I will return someday to just see the artifacts of the Louvre.

Notre Dame de Paris-known as Notre Dame Cathedral it is a Gothic Roman Catholic Catholic cathedral on the eastern half of Paris, France. It is the church that contains the cathedral (official chair) of the Archbishop of Paris, currently Andre VingtTrois.  It is the finest examples of French Goth architecture in Europe.  (Remember the movie Hunchback of Notre Dame)?  It used to scare me.  But it is true this is a scary building and the Gargoyles sit on the top as if waiting to fly down at you.  The first period of construction from 1165-1240, the stained glass are in contrast with the earlier Romanesque Architecture.

The Cathedral sufffered desecration during the radical phase of the French Revolution in the 1790's, when much of its religious imagery was damaged or destroyed. An extensive restoration supervised by Eugene Villet-le-Duc removed remaining decorations and returned it to an original gothic state.

This statue is in the courtyard in front of Notre Dame.

Here I am in Paris, France standing in the courtyard of Notre Dame where Bill and I started our walking tour by ourselves in Paris.  This picture was taken after the little cloud burst of rain, see how nice and sunny it is after the rain.  It was a beautiful day after all.

Cathedral Notre Dame behind me.

The rainbow in the sky was gorgeous after the small cloud burst.

The Seine River.

Le pont neuf

Eiffel Tower in the far background

We could not believe this man just peed by the river, he did not seem to care who saw.  So Bill took a picture.

Fall in Paris how romantic

We could not believe how many bridges Paris has!!!!

Another shot of the Seine River

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Another bridge to the Louvre.

Another shot of the Louvre

Millions of artist trying to sell their artwork line the streets of Paris.  It reminded me when we lived in Buenos Aires.

The bridges are so European.

Bill taking a picture of me, taking a picture.

As I was standing here while Bill was taking my picture.  This guy came up to me and acted like I dropped a ring and handed it to me.  I said it was not mine.  This person was trying to con me into buying this ring.  It was strange, Bill and I hurried and walked off.  Sometimes traveling to these foreign places gives rise to strange encounters.

Taking the train back to our hotel very late at night after our Bike tour in Paris. We got back at 1:30 in the morning and slept till 6 am and got up to get ready to fly to Rome for our Cruise.  Boy we were beat after this long day of walking and riding bikes in Paris.

Bill had planned to do a Bike tour of Paris, it got so cold while we were waiting for our tour by the Eiffel Tower.  I felt bad that we just did not take the Eiffel tower tour instead.  Bill had already paid for the Bike tour.  

Part of the Bike tour was to ride down to the Seine River and get on a ferry boat and ride down the river.  The Eiffel Tower was so beautiful we just could not take enough pictures to do it justice.  Every 15 minutes the lights on the Tower would shimmer and sparkle, it was so awesome to see.

This picture came out a bit blurry of Bill, he was so busy taking pictures all day, that I did not get many pictures of him.

We finally got someone in our tour to take a picture of us on the ferry ride in front of the Eiffel Tower.

Our Bicycle tour, we had to wear these fluorescent jackets.  The drivers in Paris are pretty crazy like in Argentina.  Bill and I felt right at home.

Hey Everyone!!This is fun, everyone rides really fast.  I surely got my work out today with all the walking today and riding tonight.

On our bike tour we ate at Lenardo dicaprios favorite ice cream shop called "Bertonnis".  It is actually called "Gelato" (the pictures of Island City where he stays alot of the time is on my camera which was stolen in Rome, so I have no pics of ice cream spot and Island City).

In this picture we were waiting for everyone to arrive for the bike tour, when the sun went down in Paris it was sooooo COLD.  I wanted to opt out, I thought my layered shirts would keep me warm but they did not.  Bill bought me some gloves at the bike shop (probably the most expensive, cheaply made gloves ever $15.00, but I had to have them to survive the bike riding)  Bill always takes good care of me.

Paris just wouldn't be Paris without the Eiffel Tower.  Designed by Gustave Eiffel for the 1889 world fair, (he also built the statue of liberty). It stands at 984 feet, it was THEN  the worlds tallest building.  Not everyone was happy when it was first built: many considered it an eyesore and wanted it pulled down, but today it is one of the world's most visited monuments.  The first and second floors can be reached using the stairs, and lifts take visitors to the magnificent view at the top.

Under the Eiffel tower as the sun is going down.  People are waiting in lines to take of tour of the tower.

We had not eaten pretty much all day, because we had so much to do and such little time.  We grabbed a bite to eat at a restaurant.  I wanted something really good while we were in Paris, but we had to hurry to make the tour.  So we split a plate of curried scallops-I was disappointed.  We should of got pasta or something else.  When we were done  we started walking towards the tower to meet up with our tour. It was funny as we were walking we could see the Eiffel tower and then we would turn down a street and totally loose sight of the tower, we kept loosing it and would have to weave back to try to find it.  We thought how strange it was to loose it so much when it is so tall and would be hard to miss.  Bill and I were surprised it was so closely tucked into the city like it was.

The European architecture is breath taking.

Look at the gold and how ornate this bridge is, it is beautiful. Down this street is where the Obelisk is that was donated from Egypt.