Hop-on Hop-off
Viewer beware! You’re in for a monster of a post!
Our quarantine period was now officially over, so we hit the ground running trying to make up for lost time. K loves to do the hop-on hop-off bus tour thing anytime we go somewhere new, which I initially stuck my nose up at but very quickly changed my mind. Not only does it give you a good lay of the land, but it’s the perfect way to compress the bulk of any super touristy things you might want to get out of the way. A finite amount of time (a one or two day pass) really lets you embrace your inner ultra tourist.
It was a heck of a day - another walk past the Louvre to day one of our hop-on hop-off bus tour, a full loop on the bus soaking in the sights and enjoying audio commentary, lunch with our first rude waiter, a walk up to the Sacré-Cœur, a meander back through the art district of Montmartre, a little break for some amazing happy hour cocktails, then home to some very disgruntled kitties (where have you BEEN all day??!!).
Without further ado, let’s get these pictures rollin:
On the way to the Louvre, a funny shop with an astronaut and very cute sheep dealies:
Cool dinner/cruise boat (google says it is “Le Calife” - they have a pretty neat website
An amazing art installation in progress at the Louvre:
On the bus —
The top of the Arc de Triomphe du Carrousel (right across from the pyramid)
Notre-Dame!
Champs-Élysées — A fun fact I learned on the bus - (from wikipedia:) “The name is French for the Elysian Fields, the place for dead heroes in Greek mythology.” I somehow never knew this translation!
Neato mirror building
Arc de Triomphe —
Statues on the Pont Alexandre III —
George Washington!
First closeup of the Eiffel Tower :)
Les Invalides - Napoleon is buried here!
Also houses Musée de l’Armée
Luxor Obelisk in Place de la Concorde - 3,000 years old, gifted from Egypt for Jean-François Champollion who deciphered hieroglyphics.
Paris opera house (Palais Garnier) - the setting for Phantom of the Opera!
Galeries Lafayette Haussmann - a fancy and absolutely beautiful department store
With a free rooftop!
K spoils me - my first Comme des Garçons!
Funny little restaurant we tried to lunch at (but no one was home??)
Sacré-Cœur —
Stained glass reflections
Beautiful organ
Statue of Saint Michael the Archangel
Just some fun street art :)
Wild covid mural
Adventure time!
The Wall of Love!
Perty restaurant
Delicious cocktails! This was called a strangebrew (and it was indeed quite strange)
Heads on a bridge, all unique. Pretty rad.
Disgruntled kitties - they were not thrilled at being cooped up all day. I turned my head for a moment and found Jamal outside in the gutter on the corner of our building!! I coaxed him back in, only to have him walk back outside right in front of my face. Miss Vivian also got past our impenetrable cat barrier (thankfully this happened before bed)… so I now introduce cat barrier v2! (spoiler alert - she still got past this one…)
Woo we did it! If you’re still here, thanks for reading! Catch y’all on the flipside.