Paris, France Day 4

The Louvre

If you have been to the Louvre museum, I am sure you didn't know that the Louvre has a back door entrance. Thomas looked up online through some local page mentioning a back entrance. We skipped the lines and got right inside. The complex is huge and the building itself is extremely impressive. It is impossible to see everything, so we just cruised through at a moderate pace stopping at a few features. Yes, we saw the Mona Lisa and Venus di Milo, but so much more caught our eyes. Some of our favorites were the Egyptian, Islam, and the Greek antiquities. After spending time in Greece, looking at what Paris has is another piece to the puzzle. There were sculptures that blew our minds. I found it gratifying to see statues with their heads actually attached!

For lunch, we stepped out to a local place just across and down the street. Every time we eat in Paris, it's a BIG deal. Lunch is a special moment and another reason to sample great French cuisine. After eating, we went back to the museum to finish the Greek area. The lines were long to get inside at this time, so we used the secret entrance again. At least 1000 people were in line to enter through the glass pyramid, and not one single person was in line at the other entrance.

To get to the museum and back home, we took the Paris rental bikes. Velib bikes is a city wide program where bikes and automated kiosks are set up all around town. You just put in a credit card, take a bike, ride it, and then return it to another bike location. The first half hour is free! We did not have to pay anything to take a quick ride through the center of Paris. Sometimes the kiosks are a little glitchy, but it has been really nice seeing the city by bicycle. Anne is a great bike guide making us ride through bust streets and risking our lives at every moment. I would not have it any other way! The other option is to take the Metro subway, but it is a little smelly and you don't have the view you get on a bike. The bikes are a little heavy, but very durable. I am sure we will be using them again soon.

Back at the apartment, Thomas and Anne had to go out for dinner with some friends, but we first went to the giant grocery store just out of town. We thought we would find a new camera for me, but had no luck. Hopefully tomorrow we will find another shop. We grabbed supplies for dinner at the apartment as well as some eats for the trip to Normandy. When we got home, I started on dinner for me and Katherine. Thomas and Anne headed out, so Katherine and I had the evening to ourselves.

Tomorrow we head to Versailles.

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