Day 8 (June 2nd, just to keep track)

Since our whole first week was so busy, we got a late start and decided to take a picnic to one of the main gardens in the city. We packed up a fresh baguette, some cheese, sausage, fruit, a salad, chips, and water in our reusable bag from the Monop’ and went off to the Jardin de Luxembourg, one of the more popular places. It is gorgeous there, all the plants and fountains, lots of tennis courts and other sporting areas. There are lawns everywhere, but unfortunately people are only allowed on one of them. Not even one of the biggest areas, but it seems like a lot of students from the nearby universities are there, just hanging out. So we sat and ate our picnic lunch on the grass in the sun. It was honestly a great way to save money on food, and the fresh baguette from the corner bakery was better than buying a sandwich.

After, we went to the Hotel des Invalides, since it was Tuesday and we’d read that it stays open until 9pm on Tuesdays. We tourned Napoleon’s tomb, which was very impressive, and it’s in a beautiful building with an elaborate dome. The audio tour was great too, included in the price, narrated by a very dramatic British guy. Then we went through the museum of the World Wars, which covered both World Wars through video, text, uniforms from various countries and ranks, models, weapons, etc. It was interesting to see the history from the European perspective, which is so different from what Americans learn. It’s a great museum, very well laid out, lots of displays and information. This is where it all starts to go awry. There are three other parts of “Invalides,” so we head over to the next part (it’s about 6:00, we got there at 3:30) and see that the modern development part of the museum has closed at 5:45. As well as the ancient armor exhibits. Apparently only select parts of Invalides are open late: the parts we already saw. So basically we did the whole thing backwards and missed out on about half of the exhibits there. Had we gotten there at five just to see the parts we saw, it would have been a reduced rate. So, while the parts we saw were great, we’ll probably go back again. On the way home, we picked up some tartes from the corner bakery. Somehow makes the whole day better. :)

-Steph