Today the sun shone on us, at least to start with.  Visited the Louvre first.  Here we visited the rooms of Napoleon the third, objects d’art, sculpture and various modern sculpture. 

 

We felt we had to see the Mona Lisa, but it was probably the low point of the trip.  Pictures will appear on the website in due course.

Walked along Champs Elysee to the Arc de Triomphe, stopping on the way for a coffee. (Off the Champs Elysee where we could afford one.)

Caught the metro to La Defense to see the the huge office block built as an arch.  This area is the business district with many new office buildings.  It is a continuation of the Champs Elysee, a whole straight road from the Louvre, the Obelisque, Arc de Triomphe and La Defense.  (Except the latter is slightly slewed – which must be intentional, but don’t know why.)

 

Here we ate lunch, some camembert and bread, on the steps of La Defense.  We walked back from the Arch, through the business district, over the Seine and caught the Metro to the hotel from Pont de Neuilly.  Stopping only for a pint of lager at an Irish pub. Almost a reasonable price of 4 Euros from the seemingly bilingual barman.

Managed to catch Rosemary in the doors of the metro.  I was holding them open for her, she was not quite quick enough and they slammed shut on her.  Not quite the same as British underground doors.  These French ones really slam shut hard (or so I am told).

Now it was on home to the hotel, and back out for supper at a local restaurant where we ate a couple of courses.