DAY TWO, PARIS

So here we are with Day Two in Paris.

We started the day with a bus tour, probably my least favorite part of the trip -- it's definitely more fun to just wander the streets, but because there's SO much to see in such a short time, the bus trip is the only way to do it. One of the first stops was the Eiffel Tower, but we went back specifically to go up in the tower later that day, so I'll start in the Luxembourg Gardens.... We got off the bus on one side, took a quick walk through and the bus picked us up on the other side...

Aside from beautiful flowers everywhere you turn, there is a replica (a really small one) of the Statue of Liberty. I'm pretty sure there are three of these throughout Paris. Maybe two.
Shot this window on the way back to the bus. Every window in Paris is decked out with beautiful window boxes. Mostly colorful and bright -- tho I thought this was a pretty one as well....
Another stop on the bus tour was to get out to see the Hotel des Invalides -- where Napoleon is buried. But the medics were on strike that day...
So we only got a shot of the dome through the bus window. Sorry about the glare, but figured it was worth sharing anyway.
After the bus tour, it was on to the Louvre... Unfortunately, you cant get far enough away to get a picture of the whole place...and anyone who knows me knows I hate having random people in the way of my picture. So I dont have many exterior shots ...Inside, we hit the "big three" first... The Mona Lisa:
Venus de Milo:
and the Winged Victory:Also a neat display of "objets d'art"
The ceilings are actually as impressive -- if not more so -- than the paintings on the walls...
After the Louvre, we took a boat trip along the Seine...this is one end of the Louvre, taken from the boat.
and the Conciergerie, where Marie Antoinette and her son were jailed before they were beheaded...
The boat tour dropped us off at the Eiffel Tower....
The view from the observation deck....
The Arc de Triomphe
Sacre Coeur
And one last parting shot of the Eiffel Tower... I took a zillion pictures of the tower as the lights came on....and the last one I took was the winner. I wish we had stayed long enough for the moon to be higher, but we had to get to the metro before the ticket window closed...
Day Three soon...Stay tuned!