And Finally...Paris
Tommy and I were 17 when we first started planning our trip to Paris. He was taking an art history class at our local community college and as much as Tommy loves numbers and computers he also has a strong passion and love of art. He then read the Da Vinci Code and our fate was sealed.
Since then we have been to some of the worlds best museums. The Uffizi in Florence, the Vatican in Rome, the MOMA in New York, the Prada in Madrid, just to name a few. But the Louvre and France had always evaded our travels.
So our arrival in Paris was filled with eager anticipation and excitement. Day one started with an exciting Eurostar train, complete with breakfast and admiration for the human engineering spirit as we sped under the English Channel. But ultimately the first part of our day was dampened by it being just too hot. 100 degrees in a big city is rather unbearable. But we made the most of it and stopped every hour for ice cream. We also cooled off in the musée de I’Orangerie to see Monet’s Water Lilies.
We also made it to Notre Dame where we ended up getting trapped in a torrential downpour in an impressive lightning and thunderstorm. It was all quite the adventure, if not hot and tiring. We have also been to a lot of cathedrals in our travels, all a bit different from the last. It’s always been hard to top St. Peter’s for its utter magnitude. Notre Dame however was haunting. The whole place felt heavy, like it was holding some terrible secret. If it weren’t so hot it would have been lovely to just sit and listen.
The evening was nothing short of magical. We had reservations to eat at the Eiffel Tower and it was everything we had hoped. Great service, food, and company. It was so fun to get all dressed up and eat while overlooking a beautiful city being lit up by lightning.
Tomorrow is the big day. The Louvre!