Day 2 was LOTS of walking...like seriously, a lot of walking, about 4 hours non-stop. Our legs were dead! (plus mine are pretty pale, I wore shorts both days in hope of getting some sort of tan)
We started the day with a later coffee and croissant. This time we got our Cafe au Lait! Yays! And yum! We didn't have much of a plan for our day. We had a kind of plan of maybe walking along the Champs Elysees, which we did, eventually. First, we wanted to see if the Laduree near the Louvre was a cafe, because then we could have a sophisticated coffee and macaroons. We found the Laduree, but it was just a pop up store in the 'Carousel' shopping centre under the Louvre (which also has an alternative entry to the Louvre...possible way around the long queues?).
The centre has some lovely shops, including Swatch, Fossil, Pylons, Laduree. Lots of lovely places to separate with my money, I think I did well not to! After doing well to resist the temptations coming from the shops we embarked on our unknowingly long walk to Champs Elysees.
We could have been there pretty easily, but we sort of didn't walk far enough around Place de la Concorde to get to the road that led to Champs Elysees, instead we walked along the river. The view was nice though. :) As we looked for toilets, and thus looked at maps, we realised we had totally missed the Champs Elysees, so chose to head to the Arc de Triumph and then walk back along the Champs Elysees.
On the way to the Arc de Triumph we saw this pretty amazing church. It didn't quite fit in it's surroundings, but made quite an impression.
We finally got to the Arc de Triumph, and decided to take a bit of a break and sit under the Arc. I also took the opportunity to find my Godfathers name in the Arc, although it is his surname it's not 'his' name in the Arc but a relatives of his' name. Delort. It's pretty cool to know someone who is related to someone whose name is on the Arc de Triumph. Well, I think so anyway. :)
The Arc de Triumph is seriously gorgeous from inside, all the curves and details and sky...so pretty from every angle. :)
We then walked back to the Louvre along the Champs Elysees. We were expecting the Champs Elysees to be filled with lots of lovely high end stores...not anymore. It was a long walk back...our feet really started to hurt.
Getting to the Jardin des Tuileries was a huge: "We're almost there!" It's also a gorgeous garden to walk through. Every city should have a garden like the Tuileries, seriously, I think it would make everyone so much happier. It's beautiful. We finally got back to the place we had planned to have lunch at, at 4. It was ok though, we weren't hungry until then, so we kind of made it our lunch/dinner. The view was pretty spectacular. We were surrounded by the Louvre, with a view of the Eiffel Tower.
The food was expensive though, and although the desserts looked good, they weren't as good as their equivalents at our favourite place by the Pompidou.
After our lunch/dinner, we went back to our hotel and went to bed around 7. We planned to wake up from our 'nap' and see if we felt like a small dinner and drinks, but we were too exhausted from our day to go out...so we slept from 7 to about 9 the next day. :P :)
I love Paris.
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