Europe Trip--Paris, Part 2

Day 5--Paris (June 8th, Monday)

• Continued
• Napoleon's Tomb at the Hostpital d'Invalides
  
• Rue de Champs Elysses
• Arc de Triomph
• Eiffel Tower (at night up close)

After the San Chapelle I had to go see the tomb of Napoleon. For those of you who know me, I have always been fascinated with Napoleon. After France demanded his body from Elba so that it could be buried in France, it was placed in a military hospital, seen below. The gold dome is above his tomb. It used to be a royal chapel, but it is now his grave.

His tomb is massive. They excavated inside this chapel to place his tomb; so you can see it from the top floor or down below. They definitely paint him to be an amazing person. The tomb is something like 20 feet across and 15 feet high; so big for such a small man. Ironic, eh?


On the other side of the royal chapel, behind glass, is the veterans chapel. This is where those in the hospital could come to hear services. All the flags you see are the enemies that were conquered by Napoleon. This was the first church in Europe that asked you to be reverent. The white, non-Gothic architecture, and reverence made this seem more sacred. It was the most peaceful church I had yet to be in, thus far on the trip.From there we walked to the Arc de Triomph, but as you can see with the crowds of people, there was something going on at the base of the Arc. The day was some memorial for a war. Somewhere back there is the president of France. So we decided to walk the Champ Elysses and find a place to eat. The funniest event there was Steve ordering a tartar steak. He wanted to try something new and he got it. Imagine a pile of hamburger slightly cooked on the outside drenched in tartar sauce, and that was his meal. Just nasty!

We eventually returned to find we could now enter the Arc. We stayed there until late at night taking shots of the Eiffel Tower and the rest of the city. And for the good of our hearts, we walked all 500+ steps to the top. The view is worth it, but do it before you go to the top of the Eiffel Tower; that view is the best.


We then went to the quad in front of the Eiffel Tower at night and finally walk underneath it, etc. When I saw the Eiffel Tower, I was very impressed with its structure and presence. I had thought I would feel like I did about Big Ben, kind of wow, and that is it. But I am just impressed with it and I like it a lot. Sadly, our cameras weren't working the greatest and we didn't have a tripod, so I don't have any good night pictures from the quad.

Day 6--Paris (June 9th, Tuesday)

• Versailles- palace and gardens
• Climb the Eiffel Tower

First off, Versailles deserves almost a full day. Second, the gardens are the best things to see. The palace was cool and all, and seeing the Hall of Mirrors where the Treaty of Versailles (World War I) was signed was also a plus, but the gardens are extravagant.

When we got there, we had to wait an hour in pouring rain to just buy tickets.

King Louis XIV definitely lived in extravagance. I took a picture of the map of his gardens. His palace is at the very bottom of the map, in the middle. He had a lot of land and gardens and they were gorgeous. Due to time constraints we weren't able to see everything, so Tyler and I rented a little golf cart (which they governed the engine so you could never make it back at the hour mark and have to pay more) to go see more of the gardens. It was way fun. Plus, it gave us a little audio guide and classical music to drive to:) It rained off and on while we were out there. Another lame thing, they didn't turn on the fountains until we were almost done with Versailles.


The Hall of Mirrors.
Our last stop in France. . . climbing the Eiffel Tower. Oh yeah! After only seeing it at night I had to see it in the day. Still impressive.

To save money and get a good work out, we walked all 1665 steps to the second platform. There you have to take an elevator to the top.
These are some views from the top of the Eiffel Tower. It was cool just to be that high. We probably spent almost an hour just looking out at Paris. It was a great way to end our stay in that beautiful city.