Paris...oui oui!

Just a quick post today...was too tired to post last night.  We left Beaune and traveled to Paris on the bus.  We had to say goodbye to our driver Hub, since we had reached our final destination of the trip...sad to see him go; such a nice guy.  He dropped us off almost at the doorstep of our hotel, which is no easy feat in this city!

After getting settled in we toured Saint Chappelle, which has stained glass windows dating back to the 1400s...unbelievable that they have endured all this time.  The second photo here is of the altar in the downstairs chapel...loved the arches and colors.  (The top photo is of the building where Napoleon is buried and is one I took while waiting for my hotel room to be readied.)

After Saint Chappelle, we walked over to Notre Dame Cathedral and did a walk through there.  They were saying mass while we were there, but we had thousands of others there for company as well, so it's not like we interrupted anything.

A stroll through the Latin Quarter rounded out our group activities for the day, so I went and got dinner, then got my camera and tripod and headed over to the green space in front of the Eiffel Tower.  I hung around there for over an hour waiting for full dark...took a bunch of pictures and was there when they finally lit it up at 11:00pm.  There was lighting already, but when they turned on the sparkler lights (my own description--looks like the flashing Christmas lights), it brought a loud cheer from all the onlookers.  It was a real party atmosphere, with locals and tourists all congregated together, having picnics and drinking.  There was a group of young locals behind me playing beer pong, but I didn't see any fights or any hostilities the wohoe time I was there.  We Americans should take a couple of lessons from that!

See ya soon friends!

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