This is our last day in Paris. I guess it was appropriate that it should be raining as that is how we started the trip and how we will end it.
Since our breakfast is no longer included in our room fee and they want 8.50€ for a bowl of cereal we decided to walk over to a little place that would give us a Rick Steves breakfast discount and we could get an “American” breakfast that included ham & eggs.
Day 38 – Paris, France
Our plan for today is to see Napoleon’s Tomb and go up in the Eiffel Tower. We walked to the Tomb in a fair downpour and saw a group on a Segway tour in the rain – that must have been miserable!! The Tomb is inside so we were able to get out of the rain for a while. They also have a Military Museum included in the ticket and our book had said that the World War I & II exhibits were quite good. The Tomb is quite impressive. I think they said he is in like 4-6 caskets in all. The outer casket is quite large and sits on a pedestal in a circular room with friezes of Napoleon along the outside wall. The building it is in is actually a church and Napoleon’s two brothers are also there along with a couple of military leaders that are quite well known in France. The museum was very interesting also and we spent several hours seeing it all.
We headed back to the hotel before going on to the Eiffel Tower and grabbed a couple of sandwiches and some pastries from a boulanger along the way. We ate in the lobby and then walked to the Tower. It was still raining but had turned to more of a drizzle by this time. Because of the foul weather the lines to purchase tickets to go up in the Tower were much shorter than those we had seen over the past couple of days. We decided to only go to the second level as the views from there are better and because of my fear of heights. By the time we got up to the second level, the rain had stopped and the sun was shining. Even though we were only on the second level, our ears were popping. We had some great views and took numerous pictures. There were gift shops up there so we did a little shopping as we really had not found any tacky tourist gift shops anywhere in Paris. Paul tried to talk me into going on up to the top but I refused. We headed back down and back to the hotel for a rest before going out for dinner.
We went to a little cafe just around the corner from our hotel for dinner. They have outdoor seating and had a plastic barrier up to protect us from the rain if it started up again. We ordered chicken and mashed potatoes and expected to get a skimpy serving again. They brought out a huge portion of food that also included some salad which we hadn’t had in quite a while. It was very good and we, of course, had some beer and wine!! Back to the hotel to be sure we are all packed up and ready to go as we have reserved a shuttle to the airport and it is supposed to pick us up at 4am – YUCK!!
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