Paris - Part 2

Location: Paris

We woke up early the following morning to squeeze in all our planned sites. Of course, no time spent in Paris would be complete without indulging in some of the local awesome pastries, so we decided to take advantage of the closest bakery just a few minutes away.

In addition to having all kinds of fresh-baked bread, this is what the selection of sweets looked like.
As tempting as they looked, we opted to keep it simple with some croissants, which were still warm from the oven. They were incredible.

Our first stop was actually a small detour when we saw an open botanical park. I don't remember the name but it reminded me of what an ancient chateau might have looked like...something out of Count of Monte Cristo for instance.
After that we continued on and happened to walk by this bicycle station. They have these set up all over the city to promote a way to cut down on vehicle traffic; you pay a small amount to a machine to temporarily rent a bike, then return it to any of the stations posted throughout the city. It's really cheap, and for trips under 1/2 hour it's free. Anyway, I happened to have read about these while studying in Boston and it was cool to just suddenly see one in real-life.
Back to the "good stuff", the next item on our list was the famous Notre Dame cathedral. This picture was taken as we walked up, and it was truly a spectacular sight.
And another one from the front.
Of course the line to get in was insanely long, but they kept us moving in and we were quickly admitted. Here was the view looking down the main aisle upon entering.
And this one takes advantage of my camera's nifty zoom feature, looking up at the front altar.
I already knew the cathedral was particularly famous for its stunning stain-glassed windows, and it certainly lived up to expectations.

We were lucky for there to be enough natural light to show them off, but here's some of the smaller ones along the side walls.
They all have pictorial decorations of various biblical stories, most of which I don't seem to recall in detail anymore.

An up-close of the altar which I thought was really neat because of the lighting contrasts.
But the real show-stoppers are the large windows on either sides from the main corridor. I highly recommend you enjoy it as fully detailed by clicking on this one.
All this walking around and window gazing stirred up quite a hunger, and since it was lunchtime we felt certain it was time for some wine. Plus we wanted to splurge and enjoy a good French meal, so we stopped off here. I won't lie, I thought its name was cute.
As is common, they had a multi-course lunch menu (salad, entrees, dessert, along with a couple drinks). I actually didn't take any pictures of it, but the ordeal lasted 2+ hours and was quite excellent.

Getting back on the road, we happened to walk past the Louvre again on the way to our next destination. And this was the other side which I hadn't seen yet, and it gives a good sense of just how big it really is.
And I also hadn't noticed the guards standing around the night before, but they sure guard it seriously.
This is the main square of the Louvre (same place as the previous posting, but I thought it looked different during the day).
There was also a park right across the street from the Louvre whose name escapes me, but they had temporary modern-art pieces interspersed among the old Greek statues. But since I'm not an expert on modern art, some of it seemed quite strange.

This was my favorite such example because it really highlights how weird some of it was. Notice the statue and then look up to the top-right.
Yes, that's a tree house. I was totally speechless as to why anyone thought this was a good idea.

But the park had other very beautiful parts, like this one.
We then passed by the same area as the night before (in front of the Place du Carrousel), but this time we could actually see the beautiful golden fountain out in front.
And the same Egyptian obelisk as before, but the lighting on this pic was really cool.
And the hieroglyphics I mentioned in the previous post? Here it is up close.
Having walked ourselves into a corner of a huge roundabout, we refused to backtrack and thus found ourselves willing to risk our lives in a human version of Frogger. How bad could it be? Try dodging traffic here over what I believe has to be at least 7 lanes of traffic.
Although we lived, there was a scary moment when I dropped my sunglasses somewhere in the middle and decided to run back and pick them up. It was very dramatic at the time.
And while our next destination is visible in the distance of this last picture, this post is already quite long and I will thus save it until next time.