Sacre Coeur Basilica, The Eiffel Tower and the Louvre Museum

 Beautiful sunny day. We have mastered the bus system. Took a bus to the Sacre Coeur Basilica. It is a bit north of downtown and sits up on a hill. Great views of Paris. There is a real smog issue and when the sun is out- there is a haze, so you can not see clearly.
The beautiful white basilica stands proudly above the city.


The Basillica is filled with mosaic murals. Even the ceiling over the alter is a huge mosaic.




The outside is also impressive.

We strolled thru the small shops in the area. Found a wonderful pastry shop and purchsed a few snacks.


 A bus took us about 1 block from the The Champ de Mars - the open green space in front of the Eiffel Tower. It was a picture perfect day. We did not go up to the top because we had already seen the city from the top of Notre Dame and for 50 Euros it did not seem worth it. It was also very crowded. We just walked and looked.




 Found a cute cafe and had lunch. a bus ride back to the apartment for a nap. The Louvre is open late one evening a week and we thought is might be less crowded- avoid all the tours if we went in the evening. That turned out to be a good plan. We walked right up, bought our tickets and off we went. We had read that it is best to make a plan of what you want to see and just tackle those areas. They say that is you spend 60 seconds looking at each piece in the museum, for eight hours a day, 7 days a week- it will take you 75 years to see everything. We had already seen so much art work at the museum in Munich, the art galleries at the Munich Residence and Palace that we decided to focus our viewing on Roman, Greek and Egyptian sculpture- after we saw the Mona Lisa. The Louvre has beautifully painted ceilings and decorative work. It is worth viewing all of that.  We were able to see the Venus de Milo  as well. It is exciting to see works of art that you have studied in school right there in front of you.







 There was a special exhibit on drawings and etching used for making prints. Very interesting.

We had some great views from inside the museum.

The pyramids views are also wonderful.




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