day 3

Instead, we decided we should go to the Eiffel Tower first thing in the morning and go up then. We still had to wait in a line (about an hour total), but we got to go to the very top of the tower, took about a million pictures, and even ate lunch up there (baguette sandwiches).

After we got done at the Eiffel Tower , we headed toward the Rodin Museum (which we had tried to visit the prior day, but it was closing time already (it closes at 4:45!) to see The Thinker.

The Rodin Museum was really neat overall. I got to see several sculptures I’d been looking forward to (Hand of God, the Kiss, Gates of Hell, etc.), and lots of the sculptures were outside, which was really neat. It was also a much smaller museum… so I think we spent about 30 minutes there… and that included a bathroom break! After that, we headed to the Louvre. Wow. What an impressive place the Louvre is.

We entered through the glass pyramid…

And I had a list of masterpieces I wanted to see (the Mona Lisa, the Winged Victory, the Wedding Feast at Cana , the Venus di Milo, etc.), so we worked our way through that list…

And then we had a Starbs break… And then we headed back out to see the Egyptian artifacts that Lance wanted to see. By this time, it was getting close to 6:30 (or whatever time the Louvre closes), and I was trying desperately to get back to the gift shop before it closed. It seemed like every which way we turned, there was more Louvre! We made it to the gift shop and then decided to go into the Carrousel mall attached to the Louvre to eat dinner (and, of course, to take pics by the inverted pyramid). As it turns out, Mary Magdalene’s final resting place (ala Dan Brown’s DaVinci Code) is somewhere between the Virgin Music megastore and the Apple store…

Anyway, we ate dinner in the food court there (quiche and bread)… and then I read that the Louvre is open until 9:30 on Friday nights, so we ventured back in! We spent HOURS there... and still didn't see even half of what there is to see. Just amazing!