Day 4: Paris

A nice thing about Paris is that almost all the museums and sites recognize a common pass. So Ariana and I got a 2-day museum pass to get us into almost everything that was on our list.

We visited Notre Dame, the famous cathedral on the island. After looking around inside and seeing all the amazing stained glass, we decided to try to climb the big towers. Unfortunately, the line was incredibly long and extremely slow-moving. We watched as a street performer dressed in funny clothes started wandering around and interacting with people walking down the street - greeting people as his mother, pulling people and cars with invisible rope, challenging people to martial arts fighting, etc. It certainly kept us amused!

Sainte-Chapelle resides in the courtyard of the French Supreme Court. We ended up making a complete loop around the building before finding the entrance (long line for security). We also stopped at the archaeological crypt on the same island - there are Roman ruins located just a couple hundred feet from Notre Dame.

I was all excited to go to the museum of coinage, but we got there and found out it was closed for renovations. So instead we went to the Musee du Quai Branly - it's a new world culture museum with hundreds of instruments, masks, and other artifacts from around the world.

The view from the top of the Arc de Triomphe was not quite as impressive as from the Eiffel Tower, but we could see for miles down the nice straight roads. Our legs were tired after that walk.

We also managed to find a restaurant right on the Champs-Elysee that wasn't too expensive, so we had a nice leisurely dinner there.