Paris

Day 5

Paris(post by Rob)

Today we went on a cruise of the River Seine. It was very good to navigate through the river and see the famous buildings and bridges and hear what their story was.

It was really cold on the top deck so G-ma dressed as warm as she could. We were all pretty cold after a few minutes, so we ended up going to the inside of the ship.

This was Rob glad to be downstairs of the ship, nice and warm.

We also made a visit to Champs Elysees, which is a famous street from the Arc de Triomphe. We did a lot of walking and shopping at the nice stores.

View of the Arc de Triomphe.

Posing near the Arc de Triomphe.

The traffic around the Arc is insane! There are no lanes but about 4 or 5 lanes worth of traffic driving at all sorts of speeds. It was fun to sit and watch the numerous "almost accidents." We saw some close calls but no accidents. Paris drivers must come to the U.S.A. and think we are a bunch of wimps when it comes to round-a-bouts.

Eternal Flame of the Unknown Soldier.

We visited the Paris Opera House. Danee and G-ma had never been there so we went. We all wish that we could have seen a show there but we did not have enough time. The building itself was magnificent. It was beautiful, filled with gold and a lot of marble. It was very cool to see. A must for everyone visiting Paris.

Danee getting fancy with her picture taking of the main staircase.

The Grand Staircase in the Opera House.

This is a view of the stage and the seats in the auditorium.

This is Danee posing in the halls where they store all of the books, set designs, music scores, etc. They have the actual items right there dating back to the 1700's and forward. It was really interesting to see dioramas of the stage set designs for all the different plays.

These were photos taken on the second floor of the building overlooking the main stairwell.

This is part of the ceiling in the Opera House.

This was one of the beautiful fire places in the main hall and visiting areas.

This photo was taken looking from one end of the hall to the other.

This was a very interesting clock that had the time, month, day, and astrological sign on it. It was really interesting to see.

The building has some amazing sculptures and items in it.

We then visited Napoleon's Tomb. This was a really interesting place to see. Napoleon was a small guy but as you will see below his tomb is huge! Inside the main room lies Napoleon, but there are other people buried in the small rooms adjacent to the main room. Some of his brothers and his son, as well as several people who fought for him have tombs there. Attached to the tomb building is France's military school. It was interesting to walk through the tomb, and the attached military museum and see real French soldiers in their uniforms walking around, doing schoolwork, etc. The military museum had some amazing artifacts and items in it, including items from the french resistance during WWII, as well as from the Nazi concentration camps. The concentration camp items were very sad and disturbing to see, but worth seeing none the less.

G-ma and Danee standing outside the tomb entrance.

Napoleon is actually buried in the picture above. He lays in 5 different layers of coffins. The final and outer layer coffin was huge! It was made of beautiful red porphyry marble.

This is the ceiling of the tomb. It was a huge building.

One of the many statues surrounding Napoleon's Tomb.

One of Napoleon's brothers.

One of Napoleon's Generals.