We said goodbye to Peter and our bus when we arrived in Paris at mid-day.  Wow, our last stop!  Our hotel was just a block away from Rue Cler, and I instantly fell in love with this neighborhood: the street is full of shops and restaurants.  I grabbed some nice apples from the grocery for snacking later, and then a sandwich and a tart from the corner boulangerie for my lunch. 

 

Jesse made sure we knew how to navigate using the Paris Metro maps and how to transfer lines to get where we were going.  My first Paris Metro experience was standing-room only and it was moving so fast that I could barley hang on!  I survived, and over the next two days, I ended up actually enjoying the Metro rides.

 

We were scheduled to see both Notre Dame and Sainte Chapelle today - not enough time at either for me- so I let Jesse know that I was staying longer at Notre Dame to hear Vespers, and I would go to see Sainte Chapelle on my "post- tour" day.  I finally got to hear Vespers sung - and at Notre Dame no less!

 

It was too cold outside to take a water cruise to the Eiffel Tower as I had planned, so I took the 69 bus instead.  I would still get to see Paris as the lights came on -  the pyramid at the Louvre was glowing red.  At the end of the line was Champs de Mars, where it didn't take long to find a great view of the Eiffel Tower all lit up. On my way back to the hotel, I ran into some folks from our tour group that had just finished having dinner, and I realized how late it was - I was too tired for dinner anyway, so I just had an apple and was happy to call it a day!