Paris - Day 3

Finally, on our last day in Paris, we got up to the Eiffel Tower, but of course not without a story to tell. We got to the tower at about 9am and there were about 20 people in line before us. Ever the competitive pair, Jon and I schemed to find a way to the front of the line. As I recalled, there were two lines the day before and today there appeared to be just one. We risked it and went to start the trend for the second line - and it paid off! We were the second ones in on the individual line and got the pleasure of nearly being stampeded by a group of Japanese tourists. On our way up the lift, they were all oohing and ahhing so much that between stifled laughter, Jon joined in - I actually think he was the loudest in the end and I almost died of embarrassment before I realized that no one thought a thing of it.


Afterward, we made our way to the Musée du Louvre, which as you all know you could spend a week in if you had the time. I appreciated their queuing technique more than the other museums in Paris; they move you along quickly outside the pyramids and then you are pretty surprised to see you haven't waited in a line for tickets at all, just the security screening. In our usual style, we had to speed through the Louvre for lack of time but we hit the highlights, only getting lost a few times in the process. It is a really overwhelming museum, not only for the amazing art, but also just the sheer size of the building and paintings around you. The Mona Lisa is much more of a generic/touristy process than Jon and I remembered; they've moved it into a side room and have two guards posted by it barking at the crowd to move along.

After walking down several flights of stairs to leave the museum, Jon discovered that we were umbrella-less (not the best discovery for this rainy day). Here's a picture of Jon with the umbrella shortly before its disappearance:

I'm OK with making that donation to an institution like the Louvre - I hope someone enjoys our new umbrella! Good thing we both have hoods on our rain coats :)

We stopped by the Jardin des Tuileries on the way to Goyard, before making a mad dash to another fabulous Ellen suggestion: Gerard Mulot - this is a patisserie to end all patisseries - she suggested the sour cherry clafouti tart, which of course we sampled, along with um a couple other treats :)