Chilling and a cultural education

Wahoo! We are now back to writing about the current day's events rather than playing catch up.

Yesterday was a pretty relaxed start to our time in Paris. A cafe adventure after not finding a bar to watch the ABs in. Laundry with a lunch break for crepes. A drink in the local bar (where the bartender made sure I tried some of his cheese plate!) and a stellar view of Europe's greatest firework show, Grand Feu d'Artifice Saint-Cloud, from our apartment.

Today we set off to see some more of the Louvre - this time with an audio guide preloaded to make sure we didn't get lost in the Egyptian Gallery like last time... we again found the secret entrance through the mall which has no line despite it being a Sunday and around midday! Absolute win! Highlights today were: Bronze statue of

Emperor Hadrian, Antique Greek sculpture of Venus de Milo, The Regent Diamond (which was not on display last time!), Croms favourite Christian Saint Francis, The Coronation of Napoleon by Jacques-Louis David 1806 and Liberty Leading the People, by Eugene Delacroix 1830. The usual jockeying crowd were there for the Mona Lisa too. Wandering through this museum is bewildering as it is SO large! But part of the joy is being able to admire the building itself as each wing or room has different and detailed decoration to capture your imagination of how it was back in the days as a palace.

Our tummies were rumbling by the end of our time here so we made a beeline for food and even managed to order completely in French. A small but satisfying accomplishment when no one replies to you in English!

From here we went our separate ways. Crom to the Musée de l'Armée and Jo to Musée d'Orsay. Why Michael did not want to see more art in the recently voted 'Best Museum in the World' I'm not sure!

Again I would say that the building that houses the Musée d'Orsay is part of the charm of this museum. One of the largest art museums in

Europe, it is housed in the former Gare d'Orsay, a Beaux-Arts railway station built at the end of the 19th century. The museum has quite a unique set up to enable the old station architecture to shine. I was taken on a very educational tour through (mostly) French art from the mid 1800s until just before WW1.

I spotted some scam petition signing people outside the museum so slunk away down the street along the Seine. On the way a French man made some conversation with me (me in English, he in French...) and then I found Michael looking at the obelisk in Place de la Concorde.

The Army Museum is housed in the old war veteran's hospital at Les Invalides. It is a huge museum with displays from ancient weapons and armour to a hall dedicated to a timeline of the wars France fought between the time of Louis XIV in 1643 to Napoleon III in the 1870s. The timeline was fascinating as it described each battle and which countries were aligned at each time, everybody kept swapping sides! Unfortunately there was a performance in the courtyard tonight so the museum shut early and I was kicked out just as I was getting

to the Napoleon sections. However, possibly the most interesting part of the museum was still open. The Dome Church is just behind the museum and houses the tombs of some of France's great war heroes, including the tomb of Napoleon. It is a grand tomb very fitting of the man who conquered and changed the face of Europe forever.

After coming out of the museum and past the armed guards, who seem to be everywhere, I wandered up through the park and back over the river and found myself on the Champs-Elysees looking at the Arc de Triomphe. I headed back to Place de la Concorde to find Joanne.

Once we had found each other we headed back for a night in.