It is possible that I am slightly toasted from the cocktails I had this evening before, during and after dinner so what better a time than to write a blog post about todays events.
After a rather average evening feeling a tad sorry for myself as often happens a week or so into a trip by myself I woke up to blue skies which cheered me up immensely. It was still bloody cold at -1degree, the puddles were iced over it was that cold, however I can handle the cold if it means it’s not raining or snowing!
After a long and rather full metro ride I arrived at Le Musee de Louvre and could not locate any of the entrances other than the main Pyramid entrance, I had heard this was usually stupidly busy and given I had arrived not too long after opening I expected it to be crazy. Most people must have headed to the Eiffel Tower or something as the line was quiet small and after about a minute I was through the bag check and heading down the escalators to the automatic ticket booth. Not sure why heaps of people had lined up at the manual booths as there were huge lines there.
11Euro later I had a ticket and an English map and was none the wiser as to where to head. The only thing I knew was that La Joconde AKA Mona Lisa was located somewhere in the museum. The museum is huge so good luck to me, someone who can’t really be bothered reading maps unless it is necessary.
Turns out the Venus de Milo statue is also in the Louvre, something I didn’t know until the day before when mum mentioned something about it. I wandered around rather aimlessly and saw the statue and painting and then museum fatigue / boredom as there was too much to read set in.
Outside the Louvre I walked through Le Jardin de Tullieres towards the Seine and followed that around past the Eiffel Tower, I must have done a decent amount of walking today as I required a short nap when I got back to the hostel.
I was rather stoked to finally see the Eiffel Tower with some blue skies rather than snow everywhere, pleasant surprise and more what I expected coming here.
After my nap I found the nearest supermarket (right outside Crimee metro stop) and on the way back walked around the canal right beside the hostel which was nice but very very cold. It seems you need to be indoors before 5pm here as it gets unbearably cold.
I saw a few people playing petanque as I walked down beside the canal, they said something to me in french then smiled and winked which was odd, not sure what they said I think they were making fun of each other but who would know.
One more day in Paris, I am going to attempt to make my way to Versailles, although instructions for the Metro and RER on the internet are not very helpful so let’s see if I get lost or not.