We started our day at the Louvre, which is very massive and overwhelming. It took quite a bit of hiking (and lots of stroller collapsing and re-opening) to get back to the Mona Lisa, but it was worth the hike. The kids loved it, and we were all amazed at how small the painting actually is. Here is a picture of the girls with the Mona Lisa in the background. Look for the tiny speck on the wall with the hundreds of tourists surrounding it.
We also saw the Winged Victory of Samothrace, a real-dead mummy (as opposed to a real-live mummy), a statue of Ramses and several statues of a sphinx.
On our way to a park near the Champs-Elysees, we stopped into a really neat (and not overwhelming) art museum called Musee de l'Orangerie. It has two huge displays of Monet waterlilies and willows. It was excellent and I highly recommend it. The kids could get really close to the paintings and see the brushstroke detail before stepping back to get the full effect. It was a great lesson in perspective.
After a little playtime in a park, we hiked up the Champs-Elysees to see all of the high-end stores and made our way to the Arc de Triomphe.
We climbed up the 284 steps to the top (luckily, we discovered that Dan could take Jack and Hadley in an elevator) and had a breathtaking view of Paris. (It was also breathtaking to me, because I was extremely out of breath from the climb.) Notice the Eiffel Tower in the background:
It was another memorable day. The kids were troopers with all of our walking. Can't wait to see what tomorrow brings.
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