We started at the ferris wheel near the Louvre.  We just kind of wanted to.  Whee!

Walked to the obelisk.  When we were in Egypt, we learned the obelisk was stolen from the Egyptians.  The Parisians say it was a gift.

We walked down the Champs-Elysees to Laduree.  It was as pretty inside the store as their awning outside.  Like Pierre Herme, their macarons were very flavorful.  They seemed more simple to me, which I liked.  And their counter of treats and rows and rows of macarons was impressive in color and beauty.  I could have looked, and drooled, all day.

We eventually made it to the Arc de Triomphe.

Today was the big day, the day all you readers have been waiting for.  Today was the day we visit La Tour Eiffel.  Today was also the day it got cloudy and windy and even rained.  Bah!  It didn’t happen until later and only affected the pictures at sunset Kevin hoped to take, but still, very sad.

We had another picnic in the park – I could get used to this!  Wine is much much cheaper here than water or soda.

Took the obligatory pictures of ourselves.

And people watched until we decided to get in line to go up the tower – right about when the wind kicked in.  We have both been to the Eiffel Tower during the day so we took a shot at what the city was like at night.

It was pretty amazing.

We spent the first half of our day on Velibs in the 6th arrondissement.  We are LOVIN’ the Velibs!

More friend recommendations led us to Pierre Herme, for fancy macarons – with flavors like asparagus and hazelnut, passion fruit and chocolate and rose.  They were very rich in flavor and very delicious.  They were almost too rich for me.  I found I enjoyed the giant pistachio macaron from a corner bakery a little better.  I know.  Weird, right?

 We took our Velibs through the neighborhood to Jardin du Luxembourg.  Translation: we biked to the Luxembourg Gardens; walking through the beautiful grounds and watching kids play with their boats in the fountain.

The Pantheon is right across the street from the park so we decided to check it out.  It sounds like it should be something of importance with a name like Pantheon, right?  But we had to remind ourselves, we’re not in Rome.  It’s a mausoleum, which is important mostly if you are a distinguised French citizen that’s buried there.  Linking up the wiki page, it looks beautiful inside – maybe we should have went in.  Oops.

The latter half of our day we took the metro up to Montmarte and Sacre Coeur.    We both had fond memories of the area and were excited to sit on the hill and watch the sunset over the City of Light (not the City of Lights).  Sadly, it was really disappointing.  Montmarte was a lot of fun to wander around; we did a self-guided walking tour of the neighborhood.  It’s hard to go wrong when the sun is shining, you’re in a foreign country, walking through a neighborhood lined with cobblestone roads.  There were a lot of tourists, but the energy was vibrant.

Conversely, Sacre Coeur seemed really run down.  There were a ton of kids just hanging out, music playing, mouths running to anyone who would listen.  It was the Westlake Park of Paris.  The grounds were also very unkept.  Cigarette butts, beer bottle tops littered every inch of the grass we had hoped to watch the sunset from.  There had been an event two days earlier.  And that may be why the place was in the condition it was.  There was a record breaking, inline skate jumping event.  At Sacre Coeur.  I found some video on the event and dang it, doesn’t it figure, it looks pretty cool.  Had we known about it, we probably would have went to check it out and my post would be in an entirely different tone.  But for now, my tone is – who holds an inline skate jump at Sacre Coeur?  Shame on you.

We just weren’t feeling it.  The cigarette butts were too many to sit on, the illegal vendors were every other person offering you beer and then running away for the police, only to come right back ten minutes later to try again.  The sun was to set so far behind us it didn’t look to be as magical as we expected; so we went back to our lovely ile and enjoyed the beautiful summer night with ice cream.

We knew today was going to be a crap shoot and probably difficult - thanks to very vague “probably before 4pm but undetermined” luggage delivery timeline.  Not very helpful in planning the day.  But museums are free on first Sunday’s, Kevin wanted to go to Centre Pompidou and most importantly, it was close to our apartment.

As luck would have it, we hadn’t explored much of the museum when got “the call.” Luggage eta, sometime before 1pm.  It was about 11am.  Back to the apartment we go.  And wait.  Until 1pm on the nose.

Fresh clothes, the sun shining and hungry bellies, we hopped on Velib’s (an awesome, awesome bike rental program that we loved) grabbed a baguette, some meat and cheeses and rode to the Musee Rodin where we ate and people watched in the rose gardens.

We also saw this guy.

He's thinking.

After our lovely lunch, we went back to Centre Pompidou to finish our tour there.  And then enjoyed some cafe time.

Not a ton is open on Sunday’s but all of our friends said go to the Marais on Sunday; everything will be open.  I’m so glad we have well traveled friends.  They knew what they were talking about as the Marais was hopping.  An interesting combination of the gay and Jewish communities all in this little patch of vibrancy.  So much fun.

Everyone seemed to be happy; from the men in very tight shirts pouring out of every single bar on the street, to us, in search of the ”Worlds Best Falaffel.”

False advertising.

"World's Best" fallafel...

...as proven by the queue...

...and happy eaters!

Our night cap for the evening was a boat tour on the Seine.  Our bike tour had hooked us up with a deal for a boat cruise.  We could use the tickets on any day at any time so we went at sunset (which happened to be around 10pm!).  It was kind of lame, I’m not gonna lie.  Our tour guide had such a thick accent we could barely understand him.  But it was something to do and what we enjoyed most was our walk home through Notre Dame.

Everyone here gets a late start (fine by us, we like to sleep in) and stays up so late.  I could not believe the crowds that were still out, just kicken’ it at Notre Dame at midnight.  We found an ice creams cart and watched the fire dancers for awhile.

I love the engery here!  Especially on a Sunday night.

We made it!  Some delay issues got us to Paris only a couple of hours later than we were scheduled but our bags were not so lucky.  They should get here tomorrow….we hope!

No luggage and a pre-scheduled bike tour for the afternoon.  We had wanted to get ourselves re-acquainted with the city and this tour took us through the backstreets and local neighborhoods of Paris.  It turned out to be a great afternoon of culture, exercise and sun.  The best part was, it didn’t give us a chance to sulk about not having any clothes – and we looked pretty damn sporty in our plane gear; ready for a good ride.

The most famous (yet anonymous) French graffiti artist

House of Victor Hugo

After the tour we wandered Rue de Rivoli, full of shops, and found a Gap.  It was like finding McDonald’s when you really have to go to the bathroom!  We needed some cheap shorts and T’s for tomorrow – just in case.

The good news is, our apartment is amazing.  We could not have asked for a better location on Ile Saint Louis, or a cuter place than this.

We feel really lucky to be in the heart of Paris, luggage or no luggage.