Day 10: Tour of Paris

A tour bus picked us up for a tour of the Paris highlights.  We toured Notre Dame (which means "Our Lady) Cathedral.  They started building the church in 1163 and finished it 200 years later.  A statue of Joan of Arc is in the church (interesting because originally the church called her a witch).  Next was a two hour tour of the Louve Museum.  We just hit the highlights but we were up close and personal with The Mona Lisa and the Venus de Milo (this work was created in the 2nd century BC but was not discovered until 1820).  So many great artists were exhibited such as Michelangelo, da Vinci, Raphael...what a great collection.  We also saw the Arc de Triomphe, Champs Élysées and the church at Sacre Coeur ("

Joan of Arc statue

Eiffel at night.

Tourists at the Eiffel.

Venus de Milo

Napoleon crowning himself.

Sacred Heart").  We bought 10 subway tickets and used them all.  The metro is by far the best way to get around in Paris.

We had tickets to go up in the Eiffel Tower at 4pm.  It rained a little but what a great adventure.  It originally took 2 years to build the tower and $26 million.  In the first 6 months they had 1,000,000 visitors and Eiffel got all of his money back in that short amount of time.