Day three down!

Note: I started this yesterday, but was diverted for business reasons (finding a hotel for tonight).

We're calling it a day a bit early tonight -- we're just tired and our feet hurt.

It was a rainy wet day here. We started off with a tour of the Louvre (after a successful and stress free trip on the metro). It was pretty cool, though, as I said (or I think I said) earlier, I'm really not an art person. I found the building (and history of it) were fascinating. I really enjoyed the chambers of Napoleon III (well, I think it was the III -- I can't find our pamphlets to check). We saw the Mona Lisa and the other masterpieces. I was a bit disappointed, because we paid for an audio tour, hoping to get an English version of the information placard for each piece of art (like they had at the Musee D'Orsay), but found the tour only gave information by room. There were a lot of fascinating pieces that I would have liked to have heard an explanation of, but was sorely disappointed. The placards were en francais and so we only understood a bit of it.

After the Louvre, we headed to Ile de Cite, which is where Notre Dame is located. Outside of Notre Dame, we toured an underground room that showed the ruins of previous civilizations and their cities. I cannot remember what the exhibit was called, but it was very interesting. It was literally the uncovered buildings of Paris' history a few dozen feet under the grounds of the Notre Dame courtyard.

Our favorite part of the day was Notre Dame. We waited in a line for about 30 minutes, which wasn't too bad, to get in. It was GORGEOUS! I was very impressed by how much access the tourists were given. The detailing in the work was beyond description. And it was just HUGE! It looked big from the outside, but then you got inside and WOW -- it was huge!!! The church was built over the course of almost 200 years and on the backs of the citizens (mostly for free) -- talk about building something to the glory of God! It gave me goosebumps standing in the church.

After visiting Notre Dame, we went on to tour the Consierge, which was once a prison and where Marie Antoinette was held and decapitated. I wouldn't highly recommend this tour, as it was expensive and short and a bit contrived (most of the exhibit was a recreation and was a bit hokey -- mannequins and all). Still, there was a pretty good history lesson on the tour.

So, now I must confess -- I don't particularly like Paris. The people are RUDE. A "pardon" seems to be an acceptable introduction to a shove in the back. People are just RUDE RUDE RUDE! It is busy and noisy and dirty. I'll give that the city is beautiful, too. The architecture is amazing. The food is fabulous. On a whole, though, I've about had enough of Paris. Epernay (and the Champagne region in general) was much more to my liking.