miLE 6,765 - Pyramids, Bells and a Pointy Thing Day 4

Oh man what a day, felt like I walked 100 miles but it really was only about 10 miles.  This was going to be my "In the City" day so I had a lot of things I wanted to see.   

First step was the Louvre and unfortunately since it was a Tuesday the museum itself is closed.  But that was okay, I didn't really want to do inside the Louvre on this trip anyways.  The area around where the pyramids of the Louvre are is amazing!  It's easy to close your eyes, ignore the hustle and bustle of morning commuters, and just picture yourself back in the day.  You can really understand how the nobles lived and how that contrasted with the normal person. 

After the Louvre I walked across the Seine to the island that Notre Dame is on.  Originally I was planning on going up to see the bells and the city but it didn't open for another few hours so I decided to pass on it.  Instead you can go in the cathedral and it's free.  Everyone is super quiet and there is no flash photograhy allowed, which is understandable.  I believe there was a service or blessing going on, although i couldn't tell because of the language. Notre Dame itself is beautiful on the inside and they also have a nice history of the building of it over the many centuries.  There was a lot of police and armed soldiers patrolling the area.  I'm guessing all the popular tourist areas.  It was a little unnerving, in some ways, to see both.

After Notre Dame, I went down south to the entrance to the catacombs which I had booked a guided tour on.  This was right after lunch so stopped by to have a pretty nice pork roast/mashed potatoes dish with a nice glass of wine - and of course a croissant.   The Catacombs itself was, let's say a little creepy.  The guide told us the history of why they needed it, some of the cemeteries where the bones come from etc.  But trust me you can't read or see pictures to compare against the real thing.  These were real people that lived anywhere from the 3rd century on to the 19th!  People that died of normal causes, those that were killed or murdered to those that died of diseased.  All piled together in tidy rows or even decorated patterns.  6 million people lie in those catacombs and it makes you wonder, when you are staring a human skull in the face, who was this. 

After that pleasant experience I headed back to the hostel for a little R&R just to give myself a little bit of a break before the main event.   I had booked a reservation for the Eiffel Tower at 8pm so headed over around 7pm to take some pictures of the outside and underneath.  

Again, a whole lot of people and a lot of security prescience.  From outside the real thing, I began to appreciate the intricacies of the metal work that went into building this monument.  And it is huge!  It's so huge that I kept laughing at all the people trying different angles and laying on the ground to take the perfect picture or selfie.  Since I had the reservation I didn't have to wait in the normal line to get on the elevator to go up to the 2nd floor.  I was able to get on the 2nd elevator ride and was first in line on that one so I was able to scram to the window so I get a nice view.  Then after that I decided to go straight to the top and that line on the 2nd floor was probably around 20-30 minutes.  I think that's only because they had 2 out of the 4 lifts running but I'm not sure.  The view from the top was as expected, pretty killer!  And it was a perfect clear blue sky day so I could see for miles.  Spent some time at the top waiting to see who might be proposing but actually didn't see any while I was there.  Then went on the elevator down to the 2nd floor and roamed around for a bit.  Then i decided to take the stairs down to the bottom.  Don't get me wrong, going down is a whole lot easier than going up.  But that was really tiring especially since I had to walk a decent distance back to the metro station anyways.

But pretty cool sights of Paris day.  At the hostel ended up talking to a guy who was from Chicago and had a few drinks at the hostel bar before crashing lights out.  Tomorrow is Versailles and maybe just a nice dinner since it will be my last day in Paris!

See you at the next miLE!