A dreary Paris day

Sunday 29th April

Woke up this morning to rain so had no definite plans on what we would achieve today. Fortunately it didn't rain much and with rain jackets on we were quite dry.

The gardens of the Palais Royal. 

We caught a poster in the metro advertising a show of dutch masters at the Petit Palais. Headed there this morning and was amazed at the architecture of both this and the Grand Palais. Wasn't too keen on some of the paintings but the Van Goghs were pretty spectacular,  and there were quite a few of them.

The Champs Elysee is that way.

Part of the ceiling in the entrance to the Petit Palais
where we saw the exhibition.

 

Inside the Petit Palais.

From there a walk to les Invalides to visit the tomb of Napoleon. His tomb is huge - Rob said it is like those nested babushka dolls.

Entry to les Invalides.
Originally built as a military hospital in the 1600s.

All the attic windows around the
top of the main building had different helmets.

Dome above Napoleons tomb.

This was huge - obviously a very important person
if the size of his tomb is any indication. 

Not a great photo, but some of the armour in the museum.

It is nice to be able to aimlessly wander the different areas of Paris without the pressure to tick off all the big ticket items. We finally headed to the Latin Quarter, near the Sorbonne university for lunch. We ate at the same restaurant as we did 2 years ago and like 2 years ago we found more options just around the corner. There was a street market nearby and we enjoyed looking at the cheeses, meats and nougats. We didn't buy anything but will be on the lookout for little village markets as we tour through the french countryside.

Our first view of the Eiffel Tower this trip.
You can see what sort of day it is.

We still continually get ourselves turned around in Paris. Nowhere is there a nice square grid system - lots of diagonal roads, multi way intersections and triangular blocks. We often stand on the street corner with maps in hand trying to work out where the river is or which way is home.