Hôtel de Ville is like Paris' "city hall". After we got off the metro station and waked up, we saw the building right in front of us - amazing. The architecture was magnificent, lots of details!
I really liked the lamp posts in front of the building, very artistic! I really appreciate the fact that people put so much time and effort even on small things like a lamp post!
From Hôtel de Ville, we walked across to the Île de la Cité, Notre Dame area, for souvenir shopping. There are many souvenir stores surrounding Notre Dame. I got some inexpensive but pretty scarves for friends and co-workers. Then, we got some beautiful magnets that looked like a frame with famous art like Mona Lisa and Starry Starry Night inside.
Then we walked across Notre Dame to the other side. We noticed that we haven't take any photos of Notre Dame on its side and back so we walked along the river bank for some great photos.
Viewing Notre Dame from this angle gave us a different perspective of the most famous Gothic church. Truly a masterpiece! Then we arrived on the most romantic bridge in Paris (remembered that from the river cruise). The bridge was filled with locks; I was told that couples came here, put the lock on, and then throw the key on the river resembling the couple will never separate and together forever :)
Now you know what I mean by the bridge is filled with locks? HAHA!
We crossed the bridge to see the "back" of Notre Dame. When we got there, there was a group of kids asking for us for signature. I have read about this scam before so we didn't fell for it! For those who doesn't know, do not sign anything or give any money to those kids. They are not legit organization! In fact, I read an article that those kids are bought from some gangs from Romania. Once you gave them money, the gang member will come and take those money from the kids. Just because you are in the church area, they are not associate with the church nor any legal charity! If you want to make a donation, donate inside the church, plenty of donation boxes inside! Also, I saw those kids in not just church area, they are everywhere in tourists sights like the Opera House! I just said no and walked away, it always work :)
Back to my enjoyment of looking at Notre Dame, here is the "back" side:
After Notre Dame, we headed to Jardin du Luxembourg. There was no metro stop near it, only RER stop so we took the metro 4 from Saint-Michel to Odéon and then walked to the garden. The walk was really nice because we get to see Paris, the buildings, the people. Here's a very nice apartment complex:
Wouldn't it be so romantic to live here?
Then, we saw this guy playing piano in the middle of the street! I really love how people are so passionate in their interest!
We walked down this street following the map. We found a great sandwich place just right in front of the entrance of the garden, very inexpensive and delicious for lunch! We ate sitting on the stairway haha but felt very Parisian :) After our wonderful quick lunch, we walked into the garden. We saw family with their kids enjoying their time in the garden. Here I am in front of the Palais du Luxembourg:
We spend sometime in this beautiful garden! Afterwards, we walked back to the metro station to our next stop: Sacré-Coeur. While on our walk back to the metro, there are a lot of clothing stores so we went in some and shop! Hubby ended up buying few shirts and polos, who could resist not to buy clothing in the fashion capital of the world!
Again, artistic metro station:
From Odéon, we took metro 10 to get to Sèvres-Babylone and then switch to metro 12 to Abbesses. We arrived Abbesses and there was a sign showing that the stairway up is like 400+ steps! Silly us that we walked up, should've taken the elevator! But the walk up was colorful:
We finally saw the exit wohoo! Once we got out of the metro station, we followed sign to walk to Sacré-Coeur. In front of us were another flight of stairs!!!! I know there was a funicular to go up but we didn't look for it so we walked again! Picture of me walking the stairs again, don't do this unless you want some exercise LOL!
After hundreds of steps, we finally reached the bottom of the church (yes more steps to walk up). Since we put so much effort to walk up, we took our time and enjoy the beautiful view up here!
Photography is prohibited inside so you have to be there to see the inside of it :) All I can tell you is that I liked the interior of Notre Dame more. There were more kids asking for donation again so say no and walk away! When we got out of the church, we were heading back down and then saw the funicular!!!! Since we bought the mobilis day ticket, we use it to get down. Within few minutes we were back down! There are a lot of souvenir shops around this area too so more shopping!
We decided to go to Louvre afterwards to have our last look at the beautiful museum! From Anvers, we took metro 2 to get to Pigalle and took metro 12 to Concorde and then metro 1 to Palais Royal - Musée du Louvre. We took more photos of Louvre, we'll never get tired of it!
I really like how this photo came out :)
This cute little puppy :)
We went back to our hotel to drop off our souvenirs and rest a bit before we headed out for dinner. We modified our reservation because we wanted to go back to Le P'tit Troquet since it was so good! We ordered completely different dishes this time (although I missed the foie gras)! We ordered the preserved duck, grilled lamb (I don't like that taste of lamb but this one I really couldn't tell it was lamb that was how good it was), and the strawberry dessert.
Another great dinner at Le P'tit Troquet! After dinner, we wanted to take some night photography and decided to go back to Eiffel Tower since it was near the restaurant. This time, we went across the river to view the Eiffel Tower. We waited here for the sun to set and more and more people arrived to have their spot to take photos of the most famous landmark in Paris!
We were standing in here waiting for at least an hour but it was worth it! We were counting down to 10 pm for the tower to twinkle. Once again, we saw the tower twinkle and it was really magically!!! Our last view of the Eiffel Tower, going to miss it!
On the train back to our hotel, we had our final look at the Eiffel Tower. In that moment, I felt like I miss it already! Paris is a very romantic city and every corner of it, something will caught your eyes!
We got back to our hotel around 11 pm and our flight tomorrow to Munich is at 10:45 am! We made reservation with the front desk to arrange a taxi to pick us up at 6:30 am since we can't afford to miss our flight! Good-bye Paris, I hope to see you again in the future!
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