Day 2 HOHO and Eiffel Tower Tour

Terry had been up for hours working on the computer so while he took a nap.I went for a walk by and over the Seine this morning. Absolutely beautiful weather for walking, running, sitting or my favorite activity,rustling leaves accumulated by the bucket full on the city's sidewalks. Occassionally I would wander down a street devoid of leaves with a germanic looking guy sweeping up the front sidewalk, but mostly not.

Too late for breakfast we stopped at one of the multitude of sidewalk cafes to watch the traffic, sip coffee and read Rick Steves Paris 2012. We noticed yellow and red double decker busses so we headed for Rick's stated pick-up spot. After a few mis-turns - it is not easy to find unless you already know where it is, we boarded it - they accepted credit cards - and headed for the upper level spending two plus hours seeing the sights. Paris L'Open Tour has 4 different routes. Good thing because if we had done the whole thing at once we would have been sun fried and even less coherent than we were when we departed. As it was, the French sun burned Terry's nose and my cheeks. Make what you want out of that. The two day pass is only a few euros more than the one day pass, so of course we got it. Hopefully we'll use it.

The green line picked us up in front of the Eiffel Tower, issued us disposable ear pieces so we could listen to the tour, and took us past the Opera, Palais-Royal Comedie Francaise, thrilling us by barely passing through impossibly small arches to the Louvre, Pont Neuf - a sanctuary for musicians and artists - 700 year old Notre-Dame, Sainte-Chapelle from the 13th century with 50 foot stained glass windows, Saint Michael, Musee d'Orsay, Concorde, Rodin's Museum, down the Champs Elysees with the 1250 BC Obelisk from Eygypt,past Charles de Gaule Etoile and his statute, Trocadero, Invalides, Madeline, and the Arc d Triompe built to celebrate Napolean's victories. When we weren't being educated we listened to the soft sounds of french music. French is one of the most pleasing languages to my ear.

Palaces were often turned into museums with the notable exception of the 1392 palace that became a prison - the Bastille. I found myself wanting to go on that tour. My college major was psych with a criminal justice option. I always thought I might end up there, hopefully not as a cellmate.

The former medieval fortress, the Louve was abandoned and then re-invented as a museum with 12 small paintings. It has many more now, of course. We passed the spot where King Louie the 16th was beheaded near the Palais de Concorde.

Of course there was a lot more, and this was only one of the 4 'overview' trips. I'm not sure how I planned to see Paris in 4 days.

We ate our first real meal of the day at another delightful open air cafe RIBE, 15 avenue de Suffen 75007 across the street from the Pullman. The waitress-suggested- crayfish salad was delicious, along with the expresso. Terry was less impressed by the steak and fries, but thoroughly enjoyed the upside down apple tart with apple ice cream.

Eating our way through France.

Tonight we're 'skipping the lines' with Fat Tire Tours (at least I think that is their name) at the Eiffel Tower. The crowd at ET yesterday (Sunday) was nothing compared to the mob there today. Should you ever come, plan ahead (like everyone does but me) and reserve/pay for tours ahead of time unless you want to spend countless hours in ticket lines.

Thankfully I travel with planners