Parisian Landmarks and the Pere Lachaise

We only had two full days to spend trying to see as much of Paris as possible, so the next day we checked out of our hotel and headed off to the Louvre.

Lucky for us the hotel was happy to hold onto our bags for the day, especially since our train wasn't until late that evening, and we didn't want to lug our bags around, or waste time trying to find somewhere to store them.

Once again, not that into art, so we skipped going inside (for the second time!), and just wandered around outside, enjoying the sunshine and the amazing lack of crowds. Aside from the huge line to get inside..

Unfortunately the fountains had all been drained of water, so the Louvre and its Pyramids didn't look as striking as they did on our first visit. But because it wasn't as busy, we were able to get a lot closer to the Pyramid's and spy on the people down below in the Louvre.

Nice even with no fountains

The inverted pyramid in the Carrousel de Louvre

The Arc de Triomphe du Carrousel

After spending a while admiring the pyramids, we continued up towards the Champs-Elysees, and through the Jardin des Tuileries.

The gardens were lovely, similar to the Jardins du Luxembourg, in that you couldn't walk on the grass in much of the gardens, but there were seats everywhere.

We sat for a while on some of the chairs overlooking the fountain to rest our feet, which were still sore from the day before. Every so often the wind would blow in the wrong direction and soak people with water, we got wet a few times, but nothing like the soaking some other people got!

The Luxor Obelisk

Sitting on the fountain in the middle of the Place de la Concorde. I did get soaked walking around this, to the amusement of Bradley waiting a few metres behind me.

We took a small detour off the Champs Elysees, to wander past the Grand Palais and over the Pont Alexandre III. We had a great view of the Eiffel Tower, and remembered how freezing it had been the previous time we'd walked along the bridge. We couldn't even concentrate on the amazing statues on the bridge, or the views because it had been so cold!

Looking towards the Pont Alexandre III from the Pont des Invalides

We did a circle along the Pont Alexandre III, along the river and back over the Pont des Invalides towards the Champs Elysees.

The street was crowded with people, we browsed in the shops and we wandered slowly towards L'Arc de Triomphe at the top of the Champs Elysees.

L'Arc de Triomphe

Last time we had only seen it from the front, so we decided to walk all the way around it. We found the further around we walked, the less tourists we saw. I think the best views of the L'Arc de Triomphe come from the left hand side, on the corner. 

We decided to spend some time exploring the 16th Arrondissement. The 16th is  home to some of Paris's wealthiest people, and also the widest street in Paris, the Avenue Foch. Which is really just like a motorway, and not that interesting to walk along!

We instead wandered along Avenue Victor Hugo, and since all the shops were closed, did some window shopping in some of the amazing boutiques lining the street. 

By this time we were starving and ready for lunch, so we stopped for lunch at a nice restaurant we stumbled upon. We had a delicious lunch of Entrecote and potatoes, which was really the only proper sit down meal we had the whole time we were in Paris. After lunch we had an expresso and a hot chocolate, and just sat and people watched for a couple of hours.

I love the way the French do hot chocolate, with dark chocolate in the mug, and hot milk in a small jug. That way you can make it as strong as you like. So yummy!

When we finally managed to drag ourselves away from relaxing in the sunshine, it was still only the early afternoon. Our next stop was the Pere Lachaise Cemetery in the 20th Arrondissement. The Pere Lachaise is the largest cemetery in Paris, and the final resting place of Oscar Wilde, Chopin and Jim Morrison.

The cemetery is beautiful, full of winding streets, each with their own name. It is home to over 300,000 graves, you could easily spend an entire day wandering around and looking at the gravestones.

We spent a good couple of hours strolling through the tiny streets, and trying to avoid the tourists speeding through, trying to find the famous graves.

Slightly creepy gravestone

Our last stop of the day was La Basilique du Sacre Coeur de Montmartre. We visited on Christmas Day in 2010, when the surrounding streets were covered in sleet, and it was extremely slippery. It was very quiet then, with almost no-one around. On this occasion however, there were thousands of people sitting on the slopes, enjoying the sunshine.

The Basilica was just as stunning as we remembered, and we were glad we had taken the time to have a quick stop before heading back to our hotel to pick up our bags.

We made our way back to Gare du Nord to catch the Eurostar home, glad we had the Bank Holiday Monday the next day to rest our tired feet.

We don't often get to visit places twice, but we were glad we got a second chance to change our mind about Paris.