We started out our packed day with the Musee d'Orsay which I was so excited about. This is one of the most beautiful museums ever. I just love that it was an old train station and the glass ceilings. It was one of my favorite things I had done on my previous trip and I was excited to go back, especially to take my mom there as she is an Impressionist enthusiast. It was cool to see in real life the paintings that we had prints of in our house my entire life. My mom loved it. And the clock is just so iconic.
The sculptures were very nice too.
When we came up from the metro on our way to the sewers we spotted the Eiffel Tower which was the first time we had gotten to see it so we were very excited.
After we got our fill of our favorite artists we went to Des Egouts which was a tour of the sewers underneath Paris. I always think of Jean Valjean when I think of Paris sewers. Because we had so much time in Paris we were really able to see lots of things that were off the beaten path. Although this was small and a quick tour I thought it was fascinating. Their sewers are massive! Like so massive that small boats can float around in them. It's kinda insane. But, I don't think anyone else was as impressed as I was.
All the lines basically run the same as the streets and they even have street signs underground telling you where you are.
Mom and Jer being cute.
These massive machines are some of the ways that they clean out the sewer. Everything that you walk through is storm or drain sewer so nothing was gross. The waste is piped out in different pipes. As you walked around the different sections were named after different sewer architects that changed or advanced something in the system of the sewers. Since the sewers were so ancient (some of the oldest in the world) is was very interesting the innovative and clever ways they had to solve problems before the modern technology.
For example, there were these giant wooden balls that they would have to put down certain parts of the sewer because there was no other way to access certain lines to clean them out. The balls would rotate through and push all the debris out on the other side. I thought it was super interesting stuff.
It was such a lovely, gorgeous day and since we were so close we decided to walk the beautiful path way along the Seine over to the Eiffel Tower and I am so glad we did because it was just perfect. We stopped and got some souvenirs so that we could say they were directly from the Eiffel Tower. Since it was a Saturday, and since they have limited the tickets you can buy in advance, the line was massive. I kid you not, it was a 4 hour line just to BUY tickets. So we decided to walk around but to come back on a less busy day to go up to the top. It was cool to be there though because it was bustling and busy and kinda fun.
After we rested in the gardens and took in the views of the Tower we walked over the the Hotel de Invalides which is a military museum and the tomb of Napoleon. It was first built to be a hospital and recovery place for veterans (hence the Invalides part). We skipped the military museum part (big surprise) and just checked out the tomb which is directly under that massive golden dome.
There are other important people buried there and I though their sarcophaguses were impressive but I came to realize....
they were nothing compared to Napoleons. The French sure know how to do things big and it is certainly impressive.
This is the view of it from the floor.
I tried (and wasn't very successful) to get a view of the massive dome and ceiling looking up from the sarcophagus. For being a pretty despicable guy, it doesn't seem like the French hate him and they certainly gave him very impressive place to spend eternity.
Next we headed over to the Rodin Museum. My mom and I had seen some Rodin when it came here so it was kinda fun to see it again. What I like about this museum is that it was a mansion in the city that Rodin and other artists had rented out studios in and he personally chose this to be the location of his museum before he passed away. We didn't actually go inside but spent our time outside in the gardens, which is where a lot of his most famous pieces were. These doors were awe inspiring to say the least.
The Thinker is always a favorite. I had thought about maybe buying a replica at the gift shop for a souvenir but seeing as they were $500 for a 4 inch one that was not really an option.
I thought this was a kinda cool view of Invalides from the Rodin gardens. We were getting super tired by this point so we sat at the little cafe in the gardens and rested and enjoyed the weather. It was so nice.
The last stop of the day was Rue Cler and as we walked over there we passed the other side of Invalides which really gives the impression of what a military museum it is. I just liked the view of the cannons and the Eiffel Tower.
As we made our way to rue Cler, which is a cool outdoor market street, we happened upon this cute little church and courtyard when we had stopped so Jericca could take a picture of a cool door (she now has a whole collection of pictures of cool doors because Paris had a lot of them!) It just seemed so quaint and charming and perfect and so Parisian since little churches like this are all over the city. Oh Paris!
Here was the view of rue Cler. It was very cool and there were a lot of locals shopping there. We really enjoyed the atmosphere. We were basically exhausted by this point though, that I don't think we fully appreciated it. We just sat at a cafe and ate dinner while we tried to get our feet to stop aching. Even though it was early we were so worn out that we just went back to the apartment to hang out for the rest of the night.
This is the flower market on rue Cler.....
and one of the chocolate shops that we went in.
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