Day 23: Paris

Another good day in Paris. We woke up and headed straight to the Eiffel tower since the weather was good. We had to wait in line for a while to get our tickets, then we started our climb to the first platform. The height didn't freak me out too bad because the stairs are solid and I just looked up the whole time. The view from the first platform was great, or so we thought until we hiked up to the second platform. We took more pictures and looked around before buying our tickets to go to the top. let me tell you, that elevator ride is terrifying. I was taking pictures though the glass the whole time and as long as I was staring at my phone, I was fine. But the moment I actually looked outside, I just pictured the whole thing crashing down.  The view from the very top is gorgeous though. We had a great time looking around and taking pictures before deciding we were starving and it was time to go down.

From there we headed straight back to the metro (grabbing some ice cream on the way) and went to Ile de la Cite, which is an island in the middle of the Seine river. We found Notre Dame which is totally gorgeous, had lunch, ( I had a hot dog on a baguette, covered in cheese which I've seen all over the place here) then went inside. This city is seriously so pretty, and honestly all I could picture the whole time was Esmerelda running around from the Disney movie, we left the building, and walked around it to Then Square Jean XXIII which is a little park just behind it, then we circled the building and walked along the river for a block or so before heading to the Louve.

We ended up finding some really cool things on our walk to the Louve, we walked through a flower market, past what could only be a film set (all we saw was a camera and a prom/costume truck), and at the very end of the island we thought we found the bridge that you see all over pinterest, where couples lock a lock onto the bridge and throw the key into the water. We were really confused thought because there were not very many locks and the dates on all of them were in the past two years or so, but we crossed the bridge and walked along the water towards the Louve, passing some really cool street venders,  when we found the real bridge. There were locks all over it, some we're engraved with names and dates, and others were just written on in sharpie, but it was so cool! The earliest one we found was from 1989 I think, but it was seriously awesome. Just spending time on that bridge alone pretty much convinced me that some day, at least part of my honeymoon has to be in Paris just so I can be one of those adorable couples.

Eventually we got to the Louve, and by this time, we had walked a TON. I mean just the Eiffel tower alone was enough to make us sore. And the Louve is HUGE! I don't think I ever had any idea how big it was because I always just pictured  the glass pyramid. so we got in, and sat around a little to make a game plan before exploring. We set off just to see the highlights, but we were still in there for quite a while, and I'll be honest, by the end I was totally done. But we got to see the Venus de milo, and the Mona Lisa. We saw lots of other famous ones but those were definitely the ones I was most excited about.

From there we dragged ourselves out of the museum and to the tube stop to head home. We grabbed some pizza, went back to our hotel room, and are all ready to go to bed early after all the walking.