The Shoe Adventure

The shoes that Susan brought for the trip turned out to be a nightmare.  She was in pain after walking about an hour, not just her feet but all the way up to her hips.  So the first order of business was to get her a better pair of walking shoes.  We had tried a couple of stores the afternoon before, but didn't find anything.  So she found a shoe store that was close to the hotel and we went there this morning.  She found a pair of shoes she liked, but had noticed a Nike store on the way, so we decided to go back and check that out before making a decision.  But when we got there the store was closed, so we went back and bought the ones at the first store.  Then walking from there to the Metro stop, we passed back by the store and now it was open.  Oh well.  The new shoes work great and she's back to being the Energizer Bunny.

The Louvre

Arriving at 11:03 AM, we were three minutes late for the tour and we weren't allowed to participate.  Bummer.   They said we could come back at 2, but we decided to explore on our own for a while.    

The first exhibit we saw was Italian sculptures from different eras.  We didn't get an audio guide, so we were on our own to figure out what the works were as all the signs and explanations were in French. 

 Entrance to the Louvre

 Italian Sculpture Exhibit

 What are these guys doing?

Really?

 

Oh, NO.

This is definitely not the kind of angel that was in my Catholic School religion book.



 The crowds were immense. 

 Tibre Sculpture


More crowds at the Byzantine painting exhibit.

Yikes! Hard to see anything but crowds of people.

School children learning about a painting

Did we pick the wrong day or is it always like this?

Didn't see many paintings but of the ones I did see, this was my favorite.

This one had a very unusual looking baby Jesus.    He looked like an old man.

I did like the ceilings everywhere we went in the Louvre.  We didn't stay that long because the crowds were overwhelming.   We might go back another day, but it was time for lunch.

The lunch was OK, but there was a guy next to us smoking, and then a guy showed up playing a French Horn, and not in a good way.  Oh well, it was nice to sit and eat.

After lunch, Susan wanted to find the street we had passed by on the Red Bus the day before, but we didn't know where it was.  We walked and walked and walked, saw a lot of interesting buildings (including the Opera House) but never found the street we were looking for, and then looked up and we were back where we had started at the Louvre!

We kept walking and ended up at the Musee D'Orsay and  decided to go in there for a while.  We just toured the top floor, and decided to call it a day and come back for more another day.

So back to the hotel for a much needed rest and then out to dinner.  We went to a place near the hotel (Cafe des Musees) that was listed on Paris by Mouth, but we weren't impressed.  I had a steak that was pretty tough.  But we started with mushrooms stuffed with snails, which were good.

Susan's first time trying snails.  They didn't taste any different from the mushrooms in which they were stuffed.   The sauce can make shoe leather taste good.

 

But hey, you can't beat caramel sauce!

On the way back to the hotel, we saw this cat on a motorcycle but he wasn't wearing a helmet, so he's not a good kitty!   

Aww-yes he is. 

More adventure tomorrow!