Thursday, May 5th - Paris day 9

 Today was our day to try to cross a few of the last minute things off the list. 

We weren't in any rush this morning so some folks slept in. Once we were all up, showered and sufficiently caffeinated, we headed out to the metro. Our first stop was Arc du Triomphe. 

From there we strolled along the Champs-Élysées. Our next stop was the metro over to the Gallery Lafayette, a masive shopping complex with the most beautiful stained glass dome in the centre, and incredible views of the city.

The gallery somewhat caters to the high end shopper. I came across a small booth that I naively thought might have something I could take home as a souvenir.

The least expensive item on the rack was a t-shirt style top that was a mere 349 euros. Needless to say I left empty handed. For that kind of money I can go and see her father in concert! 

On our way around we found two famous macarons. One is Hermes and the other is Laduree. We chose 3 from each location. We want to do a taste test and see which is better, as they both claim to be the best in the city.

In our travels we noticed a couple of McDonald's restaurants and they have macarons. So our plan is to pick up three of those as well so we can do the test with all 3. I think I can already guess which ones will come in last!

While walking along we came upon a Maille store. They had several assorted mustards to try and we all chose our favorites to take home.

Today seems to have been a lot of stops with small purchases. Good thing cause they were easier to carry home.  We took a walk along the street I had discovered on Sunday with all the high end stores. I had noticed on one corner there was Cartier jewellery store with a guard armed with a machine gun standing on the corner  blocking off the street. 

I had thought at first it was because of the jewellry store but that didn't make much sense as there are a lot of very high end stores along that street. When we were passing, someone asked the guard why they were there and he replied that the American Embassy is on that street. Seems they aren't the most popular people in the city.

From there we headed back to our place to rest up a little bit and have something to eat before heading out for the evening.

Patti had booked a night time bus tour of the sights. We took the metro back over to the Louvre and met up with our tour.

 It started at 8:00 so it really wasn't even close to being dark but we did have a nice tour with some comentary.  It's such a great way to see neighbourhoods of the city you might never get to experience.

It was quite an experience for Meghan to witness the traffic first hand on the round about at the Arc. From there we headed out to the Eiffel tower, which lit up just as we got there. 

We thought our tour was almost over but we headed over to Montmartre area to visit the famous Moulin Rouge. We're planning to spend some time in that area tomorrow touring around but for now it was quite a sight in the dark.

By now it was well after 10:00 before we headed back over to our starting point at the Louvre. A quick metro ride and were were back home, ready to get rested up for our last day in this amazing city!