Farewell Paris

Leg 1 (Paris) of our trip has come to an end, and we had a fun last night.

We stopped in at the Louvre to look at the Mona Lisa. If art lovers were watching, they would be appalled. We walked in, bypassed the route to the Mona Lisa that requires you to look at art you never heard of by taking the handicapped elevator directly to room next to the elevator. It took us 4 minutes and after looking at the Mona Lisa for 20 seconds, I was ready to move on.

But you can't go to the Louvre and be there only 5 minutes. That is when I googled "Top things to see in the Louvre". Mona Lisa was number 2, so we decided to do number 1. I cannot even tell you what it was but it was something like a Turkish bath painting. Clearly some art snob thought it deserved to be number 1.

The painting in question was on the other side of the museum. Luckily, we would be employing the handicapped elevator option, the challenge was finding it once we were on the right floor in the correct win of the museum.

Easier said than done, when you don't know what it looks like -- all we had was a floor and room number. But if it was number 1, there must be a crowd.

Fat chance. We found it in about 10 minutes and it looked like all the rest of the paintings -- and there were no crowds. We did see the museum staff stare at us as if we were crazy -- and to that extent, it was worth it.

After the Louvre, we went to dinner in the Montparnesse area again and bought souvenirs. On the way home we got stuck on the Metro when it broke down on the Champs Élysées. We had to hoof it about a mile. The upside is that we saw the Eiffel Tower light show one more time.

Paris is a great city -- I highly recommend a visit -- even if you have been here many times. Although if you have been here many times, you do not need me to convince you.

Tomorrow off to London for the Olympics......