Day 2

Mark and I started our day out by sleeping through half of it. We didn’t wake up until around noon- That went our plan of getting to the Louvre early. We decided to go to the Invalides first, because it’s an easy RER stop for us, and see Napoleon’s tomb. It was pretty neat. We got quite a few pictures, which we will post later. Mark loved all of the military stuff, because it matched his video game about WW2.

Napolean's Tomb

We took the Metro from the Invalides and went to the Louvre area. We hadn’t taken the Metro yet, because it’s not quite as close to our hotel as the RER. The RER is like BART, the Metro is like Muni and the bus lines are like our bus lines. It’s so similar to San Francisco, I was surprised. They also have a ton of musicians in the Metros!

We got out at the Louvre carousel, which is a shopping center underground. We ate at the restaurant area, and got sandwiches from a vendor. I got a chicken and cheese sandwich, and Mark got a ham and goat cheese sandwich that was amazing, to say the least. Who knew you could go to a mall in France and get amazing homemade bread with delicious toppings? Both of our sandwiches had vinaigrette on them rather than mayo or mustard, it was amazingly better. I think I hate mustard now, and I always hated mayo.

We had our wine tasting tonight with O Chateau wine tasting. It was in the old wine caves from the King who lived in the Palace that is now the Louvre. Pretty neat! We tasted 6 different wines, including a Champagne, which were really good. We also learned how to read a French wine label, so we will be doing some wine shopping tomorrow. Wine here is between 1 and about 9€- Our sommelier said that the average cost of a bottle of wine in France is 3.5€. He said that California wine is good, but that a $45 bottle of wine in the US would run about 7€ in France. No wonder we don’t drink so much wine. He said that production is really cheap for wine because it’s only fermented grape juice, which makes sense- why is that nasty Welch’s grape juice so cheap?

After wine tasting we went to the Louvre, it was open late on Wednesday until 9:45. It was practically empty from what I have heard it usually is like. We got as close to the Mona Lisa as possible, the Venus De Milo and quite a few other masterpieces. It’s pretty neat- We were just in awe of how many paintings were on each wall. The intricacies were mind blowing- The palace itself was so big, we got tired, before we ran out of things to see. I have heard it takes months to even see everything in this place and I understand why.

From the Louvre we got back on the Metro and went back to our favorite neighborhood near the Notre Dame and the Hotel DeVille. We walked around again, and saw some breakdancers. They were pretty neat, and put on a good show. We found a gyro place that sold chicken and lamb gyros. I have to say, I have never had a chicken gyro in my life, but this was an amazing sandwich. Mark liked mine better, but liked his nonetheless. We then walked back to Mark’s favorite crepe place and got a chocolate crepe. The RER station was just down the street and we hopped on and went home.

We have a 2 day museum pass that we plan on using a lot tomorrow!