The City of Love

 Good morning Paris, this was my view from our window this morning. It was still there!!!
We met up with Neil and Fiona at 8am and were ready for what turned out to be an exciting, memorable, fantasic day.
In Paris - like London there are numerous open top bus tours that take you around to the main sights. We buy a ticket and you can get on and off as many times as you wish. The tour comes complete with a commentary that you access with earphones and numerous language selections - I'll take English thanks.
We were lucky to have stop just down the road at Napoleon Tomb. We went on the big loop around a part of Paris passing numerous iconic places of interest and of course history.

Our main transportation for the day

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Arc De Triomphe

Hitler marching through the ArcDe Triomphe

 While it is exciting to see it for real the true history can be seen by one of many famous marches that occurred through the Arc.    That is Hitler marching his troops through.
Some facts you might like to know:

• The construction of the  Arc de Triomphe in  Paris was ordered in 1806 by Napoleon, the French Emperor.
• Napoleon wanted to honor the Grande Armee, the name of the French army at that time.
• The Grande Armee had conquered most of Europe and was then considered invicible. After his Austerlitz victory in 1805, Napoleon said to his soldiers : "You will return home through archs of triumph".
• The construction had been stopped between 1814 (abdication of Napoleon) and 1826.
• The Arc de Triomphe costed 9.3 millions French francs, a gigantic amount of money at that time.
• The names of 128 battles of the first French Republic and Napoleon's Empire are written on the white walls under the vault together with the names of the generals who took part in them.
• The construction of Arc de Triomphe was completed in 1836, long after Napoleon's death in 1821.

  Full marks to our bus driver, in fact any driver in Paris.
Lots of horns going, "merging" of sorts.  Our journey continues and as you can see in an absolutely perfect day - top of 22 , shorts again today.

Traffic in Paris

Having completed the "green" loop around we got out at the start and spent about 3.5 hours in the Musee De L'Armee. It houses the tomb of Napolean (as above), the Miltary Museum and the hospital for only soldiers (still an operational hospital). The tomb was amazing, it contains Napolean's ashes. You can see the size in relation to the people.

Musee Du Louvre

Notre Dame

This one is for you Coralee and Martin

 We got on the bus and travelled to Notre Dame. It was so beautiful inside. There was a mass being sung in Latin - really sounded beautiful.
We of course travelled along Champes-Elysess, saw some amazing shops eg Cartier, Tiffany's, Louis Vouton and a McDonalds. You may notice the arches are white not yellow as all the lights along the Champes-Elysess are white.

So how does one finish the day in Paris - atrip to the top of the Effel Tower of course.
Some facts you might like to know:

1. Completed on March 31, 1889, the tower was the world’s tallest man-made structure for 41 years until the completion of the Chrysler Building in New York in 1930.

2. It is 324 metres tall (including antennas) and weighs 10,100 tonnes. 
3. It was the tallest structure in France until the construction of a military transmitter in the town of Saissac in 1973. The Millau Viaduct, completed in 2004, is also taller, at 343 metres.
4. It is possible to climb to the top, but there are 1,665 steps. Most people take the lift.
5. The lifts travel a combined distance of 103,000 km a year – two and a half times the circumference of the Earth.
6. Victor Lustig, a con artist, "sold" the tower for scrap metal on two separate occasions.
7. During cold weather the tower shrinks by about six inches.
8. Gustave Eiffel, the engineer and architect behind the tower, was also involved in a disastrous attempt by the French to build a canal in Panama, and his reputation was badly damaged by the failure of the venture. 
9. Eiffel also designed interior elements of the Statue of Liberty.
10. He died while listening to Beethoven's 5th symphony.
11. Since its opening almost 250 million people have visited the tower.
12. Today the tower welcomes almost 7 million people a year, making it the most visited paid-for monument in the world.
13. Its construction took two years, two months and five days - 180 years fewer than Paris's other great attraction, Notre Dame.
14. During the German occupation, the tower's lift cables were cut, and the tower closed to the public. Nazi soldiers then attempted to attach a swastika to the top, but it was so large it blew away and had to be replaced with a smaller one.
15. In 1944, as the Allies approached Paris, Hitler ordered Dietrich von Choltitz, the military governor of Paris, to demolish the tower, along with other parts of the city. The general refused.

Anyway that's enough facts !!
We finished our wonderful, exciting, fantastic day atop the Eiffel Tower with our first glass of French Champagne in hand and toasted to a beautiful history filled city.

Sunset oner Paris