Travels in Paris

I woke to a rainy - and thankfully cooler - day and as I didn't have anything on till the afternoon, had a little extra snooze and a leisurely breakfast. My French tour starts tomorrow so I found a local laundrette and washed everything I own and lugged it back to the hotel. Then I set off to the shopping district. 

The French are only allowed - by law - to hold two sales a year and the summer sales are on right now. Every window has a 'solde' (sale) sign in the window. I went into the famous Galleries Layfette' and wandered around, admiring the stunning ceiling. My bag doesn't really have room for shopping but a pair of silver ballet flats did manage to find a home there.

Next stop was the Louve museum for a guided tour. My tour started at 3pm and at 2.45, we were huddled under a monument outside in the driving rain as we waited for the last of the attendees. The rain was horizontal and there was no escaping it, but just as I thought I was going to get completely drenched - it stopped!

To my shame, the tour was one of those where you wear a headset receiver so you can hear the guide talk. I've always vowed not to do one, but in all honesty, there was no way I would have been able to hear the guide without it.

There are more than 300,000 items in the Louve so there was no way we would be able to see even a small fraction in a two hour tour, but by dint of some pretty intense walking (a few people dropped out as the pace was a bit intense) we saw some of the bigger highlights and got a good sense do the history of the Louve palace.  After the tour ended I wandered around for another hour to see a bit more and then wandered down to the gardens towards the Siene and looked up to the Arc d'Triumph.

A friend had told me about a sculpture that has been installed on the banks of the river, looking over to the Eiffel Tower, so I set off to find it - it's a metal sculpture of a Tranosaurus Rex. It took a bit of walking, but eventually I found it! 

By then it was after 8pm, so I ended my last day on my own with dinner in a cafe that looked over to the Eiffel Tower and then crawled back to the hotel to go to bed.