Weekend in Paris

We took a three-day weekend trip to Paris to see a good friend of Iva's, and also to take in some culture. We stayed just south of the Latin quarter in a nice neighborhood which had lots of shops and markets by day... and hundreds of young people out to see and be seen by night. It was a fun place to be.

We began our visit with a trip on the metro; here I am in front of the entrance - we really liked the old iron work and the lamppost.

We then hit up some museums. At the Musee d'Orsay they had a nice painting of our room...

Just joking, of course. We did enjoy seeing lots of work by various masters, including this one by Vincent Van Gogh. The museum building itself is quite spectacular- it was once a train station.

The number of people who take pictures of paintings in museums is really hard to fathom. For example, this is the crowd in front of Leonardo's Mona Lisa in the Louvre Museum.

No trip to Paris would be complete without a trip to the Eiffel Tower. We had a nice picnic lunch in the park from this spot...

... before climbing the stairs to the second level. It was really neat to get a close-up view of how the tower was constructed, and of the mechanism which pulls up the elevators.

We also crossed the river to check out the Arc d'Triomphe, which is quite fascinating. Along the walls of the Arc are lists of cities and states conquered by France - Iva enjoyed finding Dubrovnik and Montenegro on the list.

Finally, we took a side trip to Versailles (see other entry) and several trips to various bakeries, pastry shops, etc. I couldn't help making a stop at this particular establishment...