The Plan

On the agenda for Day 2 of our 4-1/2 days in Paris: we planned to go to the Louvre then take a cruise down the Seine (thank you, Paris Pass - both of these are included in the package), and see whatever we would see in between.

After our first triumphal round of Paris tourism the day before (see a post on that here and another here), we felt far more confident with the local transport system and ready to face another day of determined sightseeing and experiencing Paris armed with our Paris Passes and dogged feet. Our plan was simple: take the bus from the 14th arrondissement to the Louvre, enjoy the Louvre for as many hours as we could cope with, then take a well-deserved tour boat cruise down the Seine River to get a feel for the layout of Paris from the perspective of this winding river.

We were ready to see sights like this exquisite fountain in the Place de la Concorde (Place of Peace, if I'm not mistaken). Here's a detailed shot of one of the elements of the fountain, followed by a view of the overall piece viewed from the river side.

And for those who've watched the Tour de France cyclists circle the obelisk during the final race of the Tour de France, here's how it looks across the plaza and closer up. There are less tourists at the obelisk during Tour...just saying....

Getting there would be a cinch, right?

Totally! We would take the bus directly to the Louvre to save our feet for the museum. We would skilfully apply our lessons of the day before to seamlessly travel from our Airbnb directly to the Louvre, using the public transport ticket (on the left in the Paris Pass kit below) we now knew how to deftly flick into the bus and metro ticket readers. Lots of adverbs.

Not quite

We missed our bus stop by four stops.

We got off at the Place de Breteuil instead of the transfer point (can't remember where that was supposed to be), and almost immediately had a bit of a culture clash between those who navigate by using maps (the paper ones you unfold and try to keep straight in the wind) and visual cues like landmarks and streetsigns, and those who have faith in mobile phones and Google Maps (Madame Google) to navigate.

Emma and I quickly decided not to let a good mistake go to waste. We delighted in the small beauties our goof allowed us to see close up. We walked through this lovely area taking photos of Parisian balconies and avenues, past the Invalides and finally across one of the many bridges over the River Seine to the Place de la Concorde.

Here are a few photos to give you a taste of that first unplanned leg of the day.

That's @tim-beck at the with the beautiful golden dome of Les Invalides in the far background and, well, the back of the statue of Louis Pasteur in the immediate background.

Here's a proper photo of the Louis Pasteur statue:

Image source: by Siren-Com Own work CC BY-SA 3.0 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0 or GFDL http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/fdl.html, via Wikimedia Commons

Getting the Paris big picture

Here Emma is looking down one of the roads which radiate from the Place de Breteuil. We start to get a sense from the ground of the genius of the urban planning which incorporates long straight avenues linking great monuments and allowing kilometres of sightlines. Yes, that is the Eiffel Tower in the distance, our first view of it that day.

Getting the Paris picture close-up

And we also got a sense of the more detailed beauty of this city. Balconies are just one example of how Paris dresses herself up.

This is typical of the wrought iron balcony work we saw as we walked towards the River Seine. Nearly every one was a work of art and craftsmanship.

At the Place de la Concorde and through the Tuileries

After what one of our party deemed to be a ridiculously long walk, we arrived on the other side of the River Seine, close to our goal of the Louvre. However, we couldn't help it - we spent quite a bit of time simply basking in the beauty of the Place de la Concorde, a wide open space populated with hundreds of tourists and featuring some of Paris' most iconic sights, including the fountain and obelisk shown at the beginning of this post.

A short walk through the Tuileries gardens built up our anticipation for the experience of the Louvre.

Image source: by Martin Robson (Flickr: 20130809-IMG_7327) [CC BY-SA 2.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0)], via Wikimedia Commons

At the Louvre!

And voilà, enfin, there we were!

It seemed like everyone had the same photo idea - but that didn't stop us from doing it too.

@tim-beck decided to channel his inner Thinker by Rodin.

In the Louvre

Once Emma and Tim have loaded their camera photos, I'll post separately on the artworks we saw there - yes, including the Mona Lisa. Some jostling of aggressive tourists was required for that viewing.

After the Louvre

Exhausted and happy after our four hour ramble through the Louvre, we made a beeline for the first seats we could find.

But the day wasn't done. We had the boat cruise to do! Until the next post, Steemians!

List of posts on our August 2017 trip

https://steemit.com/travel/@kiligirl/whirlwind-tour-of-paris-pas-de-calais-bruges-and-amsterdam
https://steemit.com/travel/@kiligirl/paris-day-1-part-2-of-several-posts-on-our-trip-to-paris-pas-de-calais-bruges-and-amsterdam

All photos by Linsey Dyer, Emma Beck and Tim Beck except where otherwise credited