On our walk to Notre Dame from the Hôtel de Ville we are joined by another couple of cruiser. They are from Texas. We stop for a bowl of onion soup at a café... a popular idea apparently. At least two more tables of cruisers come into the café before we are finished and on our way again to Notre Dame.

The street to Notre Dame is lined with souvenier shops selling all things with the word "Paris" on them, images of the Eiffel Tower and other touristy graphic artwork. We bought several scarves, about $9-$10 each. Just what we needed to look like tourists, but they would come in handy on cold nights.

Notre Dame is a zoo. There are jugglers, beggars, someone dressed as a hunchback to pose with you for photos, people feeding the birds and every type of person imaginable in the crowd outside the church. People are lined up for the guided tour, but you can get right in at the free entrance which is what we did. Was it interesting inside Notre Dame? Not really. I've been in many churches and cathedrals in England and Europe and frankly Notre Dame is dark and uninspiring inside. The exterior architecture, however, is awe inspiring. Anything that takes over 200 years to complete and dates back to the middle ages is impressive from that perspective, and since the exterior was cleaned it is even more impressive.

After Notre Dame we decide to walk to the Musée d'Orsay. It didn't look that far on the map and we thought it would be nice to see a bit more of Paris on the way. A mistake. A big mistake. We should have just hailed a cab and been driven right there. It was probably about a mile and a half to the museum and it was not an easy walk for Susan. Had we been by ourselves we would have taken a cab, but with another couple it was kind of a dare to see who cried uncle first. We should have. The forced march, as we would call it the next day, required two short rest stops on sidewalk benches. I buy some bottled water at a small café along the way. By the time we reach the Musée d'Orsay, Susan is barely able to stand. We enter into the museum, but she clearly needs a wheel chair to get around. I get one at the coat room and put her in it, but she is not really there. Pain and exhaustion have taken over. We spend an hour there,
maybe, until Susan has recovered enough to walk again. We walk over the bridge to the right bank of the Seine and through Jardin des Tuileries (above) and found a bistro nearby a gold plated statue of Jeanne d'Arc to have a drink and catch our breathe. Then we take the metro back to the Place de la République and the hotel.

We are pretty well done... too spent to go out to eat, so I go to the Boulangerie and buy two sandwiches and two desserts and some drinks at the MONOP again and we eat in our room. We rent a movie, Amelia, and go to sleep in total agreement that we had done way too much walking and would pay for it the next day.

Paris, Day Three