The Arc de Triomphe

End of a busy day...
Day four proved to be an interesting but very busy day of walking, touring, walking, touring, and more walking. As I mentioned several posts back, we started out this day with our early morning tour of the Eiffel Tower, then on to the Musee d'Orsay by way of walking and the metro (or RER train). After a few hours at the Musee d'Orsay, we were able to return to the hotel briefly to freshen up, then meet for our boat ride on the Sienne River. The boat ride was nice but you cannot see a lot from the water but I think everyone was happy to sit for an hour. After the boat ride, we were off to the metro to head towards the Arc de Triomphe. They now have a tunnel under the roundabout, so you don't have to go through the crazy traffic to get there.

France's Tomb of the Unknown Soldier is under the Arc, where they have a ceremony nightly to relight the eternal flame. You can pay to go up to the top of the Arc, but there are lots of steps involved, and most of us were getting rather weary from our day of walking and touring. So we looked around from below, then returned to the Champs Elysées and began walking towards our restaurant for dinner. On the way, we stopped to watch some 'street dancers'. They were pretty good after they got warmed up. We had reservations for dinner at an Italian restaurant. It was very good, but everyone was very tired and ready to go back to the Hotel when we were finished eating. The next day we would leave Paris for Tours, France.

Up Next: Tour of Versailles