19 July

We started the day at the Arc de Triomphe to find huge crowds and a long line to get tickets for climbing to the top. We decided to try again later and strolled down the Champs-Élysées to the Louvre. Along the way, we walked through the Place de la Concorde, where, in a triumph of efficiency, they set up the guillotine during the French Revolution and chopped 2800 folks.

At the Louvre, we encountered another long ticket line. Neither of us was all that keen to stand around a museum for hours. My back started hurting horribly at the mere thought of it. We had a nice look from the outside and continued on to Notre Dame. Once again, we were met by crowds of tourists. We admired the gargoyles from ground level, had lunch in a park, and went to the nearby Deportation Memorial. It is a monument to the 200,000 French people deported to concentration camps during WW2. Like other things we tried to see today, it was closed on Monday. We visited the Bastille area and looked in at a few churches in the neighborhood. Of course, the Bastille no longer exists, but there is a lot to see in the area. We stumbled across a fire station where I traded for a Paris F.D. patch, which I thought was pretty cool.

5:48 am

condo building

Arc de Triomphe

Place de la Concorde

Luxor Obelisk

Fontaine des Fleuves

(Fountain of Rivers)

Obelisk & Eiffel

Tuileries Garden

Bassin Octogonal	12:57 pm	12:57 pm
1:14 pm	Grand Bassin Rond	Arc de Triomphe du Carrousel

Louvre Museum

1:23 pm

1:28 pm

1:31 pm

1:38 pm

1:41 pm

Colbert

Saint-Germain-l'Auxerrois	Notre Dame	Notre Dame	Place de la Bastille
		Place de la Bastille

Paris art gallery

Randy Cooper sculpture

art gallery cat

House of Victor Hugo

Eiffel Tower Model video (6s, 0.9MB)

street by Saint-Eustache Church

L'Écoute by Henri de Miller