Roseyland

Click here to read all of my London & Paris trip posts in proper order.

Today is our last day in Paris, and the last day of the trip. Our only officially planned activity on this day was a wine tasting lunch, so we took it a little easy and tried to fit in some odds and ends. The wine tasting was at noon near the Louvre, so my plan was to start near the Musee de l’Armee to see Napolean’s tomb, and then walk by the Place de la Concorde through the Jardin des Tuileries to the wine tasting lunch. Here is a picture of Invalides which contains the Musee de l’Armee (museum of France’s armed forces) and Napoleon’s tomb. Unfortunately, I couldn’t figure out how to get to Napoleon’s tomb, so we just walked around courtyard in the building and moved on.   

On the way to the Place de la Concorde, I got this picture of the Eiffel tower. I love the way the Eiffel tower just pops up everywhere in Paris, it almost looks more impressive from a distance than up close.

While we were walking, we came across this marching band. Bastille Day was only few days away, so I am assuming that they had something to do with the Bastille Day festivities.

This is the Pont Alexandre III. The building in the background is the Grand Palais, which is a big glass roofed exhibition hall. We looked inside, but it appeared to be empty.

Here is the Place de la Concorde with the Luxor Oblisk. The Oblisk is originally from Egypt, and it is older than the city of Paris itself. I am assuming that the stands with the French flag canopy were built for Bastille Day. I wonder if this is where Sarkozy views the Bastille Day parade.

Here is the Fontaine des Mers in the Place de la Concorde.

Here is the Jardin des Tuileries, which is a garden/park that connects the Place de la Concorde and the Louvre. I believe it is also the site of a former palace, or something like that.

I liked this ferris wheel next to the Jardin des Tuileries. It’s not the London Eye, but it fits in well with the surroundings.

Our wine tasting lunch was in a wine cellar below a building across from the Louvre. This is the courtyard in that building. I thought it was cool, so I took it’s picture. I wish I had a picture of the steps down to the cellar. They were stone and twisty. It felt like we were going into a medieval dungeon.

Here is a picture of the wine cellar where we had our wine tasting lunch. In case you are wondering, we did the O Chateau wine and cheese tasting lunch. We tasted 5 wines (1 bubbly, 2 white, and 2 red) and we were also served a variety cheeses, meats, and bread. The sommelier told us a lot about the wine and the different wine producing regions of France. I don’t remember much of what he said, because well, there was a plate of cheese in front of me. One of the coolest parts of this tasting was that the other people in our group were from all over the world, but the tasting was in English, so they all spoke english. It was cool to be around such a geographically diverse group of people and be able to understand what they were saying. The wine itself was pretty good. I was hoping for life changingly great, but that might have been setting the bar a little too high. I almost hate to admit it, but to date the best glass of wine I have ever had was at Les Chefs de France in Epcot. The tasting did reaffirm that I like a good Bordeaux, so you know… if you are thinking of getting me a present.

After the wine tasting lunch, we headed to the Musee d’Orsay. This is another art museum like the Louvre, but with slightly newer (but not modern) art and it is not as huge as the Louvre. Here is a picture of the main hall in the Musee d’Orsay. I thought it was very impressive. Apparently, the building used to be a train station.

I like this polar bear. He would look good in my living room. I wonder how much he cost.

After the Musee d’Orsay, we had about 90 minutes left until the museums closed, so we hurried back to Invalides to see if we could find Napoleon’s tomb. It turns out that the entrance to Napoleon’s tomb is not inside the Musee de l’Armee, but it is inside this building, which we did not walk far enough to see earlier in the day.

I think this is Napoleon’s tomb, but I’m not sure. You see, there is another smaller tomb off to the side with Napoleon’s name on it, but this looks more like Napoleon’s tomb to me, so who knows. Maybe you do, if so, please leave a comment.

This alter was inside the building with Napoleon’s tomb. Very ornate.

After Napoleon’s tomb, we had some time to kill. I wanted to see the Eiffel tower with it’s lights on, which wouldn’t happen for another 4 hours, so we headed to the Champs-Elysees to have dinner and do some window shopping. Here is another shot of the Eiffel tower and the Seine river. You really need to see this in person, pictures just don’t do it justice.

Here is the Arc de Triomphe from the Champs-Elysees. Notice the Cartier store on the right.

There were a lot of automobile company stores on the Champs-Elysees. I don’t think they sold actual cars, but you could go inside and look at the different car models, which was cool. This is the Renault store.

Finally, we made it to the Parc du Champs de Mars to watch the lighting of the Eiffel tower. They turn the lights on at sunset, and in the summer, the sunset is very late in Paris. This night, the sunset was at 9:53 PM, and it didn’t really get dark until about 10:30. I think this is because most of continental Europe is on the same time zone, which puts France significantly to the west in it’s time zone. Longitudinally, France should really be in the same time zone as the United Kingdom. I like it light later though, so I’m not complaining. Now back to the lighting of the Eiffel tower, I swear I had seen pictures on TV of the Eiffel tower at night where it is covered in these sparkly camera flash like lights. I expected these lights to come on at sunset, but they did not, the tower just became illuminated with regular old interior lighting. I was confused, because a lot of people had gathered to watch the tower, and when the lights came on, they didn’t react, they just sat there like nothing had happened. I thought that maybe the sparkly lights would come on soon, but minutes went by and nothing happened. I wasn’t willing to wait forever, so at 10:00 PM, we got up to leave, and then boom! The sparkly lights came on. Apparently the sparkly lights only run for 5 minutes every hour after dark. Something about being green. Here is a video I took with my camera of the sparkly lights and the scene of people gathered to watch in the Parc du Champs de Mars.

And with that, the London & Paris adventure is pretty much over. I’ll leave you with this parting shot of the illuminated Eiffel tower on a summer evening in Paris.

This is the last real vacation post, but I still have one post left about my trip. I have some bits and pieces to throw in, and I want to answer a few questions like, which is better? London or Paris? and even more fun, how much did all of this cost? You can see more pictures and a few videos from my trip here.