Paris!

Ah, yes... we went on one of those tour buses! We only had one full day in Paris and I wasn't feeling so crash hot so we opted for something that could take us to all of the city sights without us having to do much walking. Conveniently the bus left from just around the corner of our hotel. We hopped on the double-decker beast, received our tickets and complimentary, cheap plastic earphones from the driver and made our way up the stairs to get the best view.

The little box that we plugged our earphones into had a commentary of the Paris sights in about ten different languages. There was a few bus tour circuits of the city to choose from which you could hop on and hop off at any stop during the trip and change to a different circuit to see the other parts of the city.

Obey sticker on the sign. :D

Oh dear!

Olympia Hall

The architecture was interesting with all these triangular shaped buildings.

Our first stop off was the Louvre Museum. Despite the look of the large crowd, we didn't have to wait all that long to get inside. A quick bag check at security to make sure we weren't carrying anything dodgy and then down we went into the main lobby. It was quite amazing looking up and seeing the glass pyramid above us.

This elevator entertained me for quite a while. 

Once we got into the actual exhibits of the museum, the decor changed significantly. Out in the lobby it was quite modern but once in the main sections it changed to grand old pillars and ornate ceiling decorations.

While these sculptures looked amazing, it was hard for me to really appreciate them with little knowledge of ancient art or history. They were nice to look at and to imagine what it would have been like back then but once we saw a few of them, it got a little boring. I think if you were to stand and appreciate each and every piece of work in the Louvre, you would be in there for about a month. There is so much to see. Roy and I did a quick scan of the map before we went in so we could see what we wanted to see in a short amount of time. It was quite easy to get lost though with so much to look at.

 Of course no trip to the Louvre would be complete without seeing the most famous pieces of art. Venus de Milo drew a fairly large crowd, although not as large as the most famous one....

There was no way that I was going to get closer to this one. There was a large crowd in front, all with their cameras snapping away. I'm still not sure why this painting is so damn famous. I think it's so popular because people just want to see it because it's famous and not really for the appreciation of the piece itself. But hey, I was one of those dopes taking photos just because it was famous!

Ahhh, so after we saw the 'must-see's' of the Louvre we headed back outside for some fresh air. It gets quite exhausting when you have to fight people for space. Lucky for us, we had some really nice whether that day, so we took advantage of it and got some lunch to eat in the nearby park.

A rather tasty chèvre fromage au aubergine tarte.

Croissant au chocolat.

We saw a rather strange thing whilst eating our lunch....

I'm not sure if it was an identification tag or some kind of advertisement but it got me thinking about advertising in the future. I wonder if humans will continue to exploit animals and use them for advertising purposes... I'm sure it was just an ID tag, but it did look very strange walking around with all of the other normal pigeons.

After we finished our very tasty lunch we discovered a small summer fair. I couldn't resist going on a ride and we thought it might be fun to go on the tallest ride there so we could catch a glimpse of Paris from up above.

I didn't get any photos whilst on it for obvious reasons....

So after our fun times in the fair we headed back to the bus stop to hop on our tour bus again. By this time the buses were getting quite full with other tourists checking out the sights of Paris. We let two full buses go by hoping to catch an emptier bus but after a rather long wait in the sun for the next bus, we discovered that it was full also. We hopped on anyway hoping to find ourselves a seat upstairs but alas.. they were full. Not wanting to settle for a seat downstairs in the boring section of the bus, we opted to stand in the stairwell (probably not the safest option). We were still able to get some nice views of the city from our spot.

It was a challenge trying to hold onto the bus whilst taking photos as we went along. Eventually some passengers hopped off which made room for us to take a seat. 

Notre Dame (unfortunately the Hunchback was having an afternoon nap so we didn't see him)

Obélisque de Louxor

Avenue des Champs-Élysées

Arc de Triomphe

We were told by various people that it is amazing to watch the traffic driving and weaving around the Arc de Triomphe but since it was a Sunday, it wasn't all that spectacular. It was a rather tame and quiet day that day.

Now our bus was driving up to another very famous Paris sight....

The tower was a lot more beautiful than I had imagined. I had imagined a rather rigid and emotionless structure but instead there was beautiful, ornate fixtures on it which you can't really see it in the photos. I also thought it was going to be grey and metallic but instead was surprised to see a rather organic, brown colour. It's really something to be seen in person because even though it looks spectacular in photos, it's even more beautiful when you see it up close. Aside from the beauty, it was very crowded and full of people trying to sell souvenirs and trinkets. Having been to India and China, I wasn't bothered at all by these sellers because they didn't approach you which was nice. We thought about taking a lift up the tower but once we saw how long the lines were, we decided against it and sat in the park nearby and admired it from underneath. 

After sitting and relaxing under the shadow of the tower, we hopped back on the crowded bus and headed back to our hotel for some rest. It was a long and exhausting day of touring the grand city of Paris. One day is definitely too short for Paris but since it's a short train ride away we'll be back for more. We're looking forward to spending New Years in Paris with some friends this year.