Paris Day 4 - Notre Dame & The Louve (kind of)

This morning as we asked our front doorman which bus to take to get to Notre Dame Cathedral and the Louve, he told us that the Louve museum was closed today.  WHAT???  I did not do a very good job researching when things were open and closed.

Anyway we headed towards the cathedral and as we walked up we saw this brilliant looking car that had people popping out of the top to take pictures.  It was actually a special tour that people had paid to take.  It looked like a pretty interesting way to see Paris.

Pictures do not do this place justice.  The ornate carvings are unbelievable and I didn't notice at first but later Emily pointed it out that the three doorways are all different shapes of arches.

Here are some gargoyles that perch at the top of the towers down on the lowly visits.  Where is Quasimodo??

Inside the cathedral is amazing.  I've seem dozens of cathedrals now and even though most of them are very similar, they all have some amazing differences.The stained glass windows are particularly amazing and the stories they depict.

Well, it couldn't have been a better day than today to spend walking around in a museum because it poured rain for almost 2 hours and then misted off and on while it was windy and cold.  Just as it started to pour down, we were next to some shops so we picked up a few souveniers and then ducked into the Hunchback of Notre Dame cafe for lunch.  It was really cool to see this really low cloud covering the top of the Eiffel Tower.

After the rain stopped we got to enjoy the bit of river walking we got to do and as we gazed and gocked at the sights we had to be mindful of the huge puddles of water in the streets that were being splashed up on unsuspecting people by passing cars.  This is La Conciergerie which was once the royal palace and then a prison.  Hundreds of prisons were kept hear during the French Revolution and later executed at the Guillotine in various places around Paris.  I had flashbacks of reading Tale of Two Cities and the crazy lady saying "Viva la resistance." 

Eventhough we didn't get to go into the Louve, we got to marvel at how it looked from the outside.  The biggest thing that I wanted to see inside was the small painting of the Mona Lisa...all the more reason that I have to go back to Paris some day.  Emily and I were a bit bummed that the place was closed but we had fun anyway.

Kevin and I had some fun with the pyramid entrance for the Louve.

The kids finally woke up from their nap so we posed for a family picture.  

We really got the picture that bike riding was a pretty big deal in Paris when we saw the rent a bike, but it was still pretty cool to see the bike lane "full" of Parisians getting around town.

Well the weather started to turn on us again so we thought we better head back to the hotel and make our way back to the train station.  A big wind gust came up on us and Emily must have gotten the defective "brally" (umbrella) because it doesn't quite look normal.  She was due to have something happen because Kevin and I had our train station episodes already.

Our train trip home went very well and when we pulled into Peterborough, Mike and Debbie were their to pick us up.  It was a great holiday and we so appreciated that Emily put up with us for four wonderful days, she is truly a very special person to our family - Lellie - The Super Sitter!!!