We have several stops today but wanted to start out with a French breakfast. A little restaurant near our hotel had a big sign out front—in English—that advertised pancakes. When our waitress came for our order I told her I wanted two pancakes with syrup. She looked surprised and said asked, “Two pancakes? They are big.”

Ok, trying not to be hard to get along with, I said, “one pancake.” Karen ordered a crepe with jam. When our orders came I was enlightened. A French pancake at this restaurant looked exactly like the crepe Karen ordered. But the waitress was correct. I could not have eaten two of them. In fact, Karen couldn’t eat all of hers. We are getting used to European coffee. It’s not like we brew it at home. Everyone seems to have a very complicated machine that dispenses many different coffees.

At our hotel we learned that the coffee with hot milk (cafe au lait)is as close to what we get at home as anything. Glad we found that out because the early coffee we’ve been getting since arriving in Europe has been much stronger than anything we’ve ever had at Starbucks. (We have spotted several Starbucks in the cities we’ve been in.)

Since we are travel disciples of Rick Steves, who wrote at least two travel books on touring Europe, we took one of his pre-recorded walks around the area. We learned that Notre Dame is the very center of Paris and every thing is measured from the cathedral, which is point 0. We learned a lot listening to him as he led us along some of the streets around Notre Dame.

We toured Sainte Chappell church which has unbelievable stained glass windows that tell the entire story of the Bible. It takes the scriptures from the creation to the crucifixion. It was built between 1242 and 1248 for King Louis IX, the only King to be made a saint, who thought he had purchased the crown of thorns. Although, he hadn’t. The church was a building marvel because it was completed in six years while Notre Dame took more than 200 years.

It has 1,113 stained glass panels with scenes from the Old and New Testament divided into 15 window bays, each about 50 feet high. It was absolutely beautiful. However some of scenes are so high you really can’t see what is being depicted.

Steves’ walk took us to a memorial behind Notre Dame honoring the thousands of Jews taken from Paris by the Germans. There were 200,000 Jews who were deported to concentrations camps. All were killed or died. There is crystal along a narrow hall for each of those who were killed. A very sobering museum.

We came back to our room to pick up our tickets for our 3:30 entry into the Louvre, the massive French museum of art that no one can see in less than three days. I’m always surprised to see so many people at the same place I am. If you recall seeing the Louvre in pictures or television, it has a massive glass pyramid in the middle of a courtyard. Folks were lined up all the way around that pyramid. There were thousands of folks there. We found a timed entry line, which ushered us in fairly quickly.

Karen and I joked that we had seen enough paintings and marble statues to last us a life time. There are 35,000 paintings and sculptures housed there. We were there about two hours, crowded with all the others to try to get a glimpse of Mona Lisa, perhaps the most famous painting there. I have lost a lot faith in Disney because of their wokeness but I do know Disney folks know how to handle large crowds. The Louvre could learn a lot from Disney on getting folks in and out of the museum. For instance, those who wanted to see the Mona Lisa just crowded around it. There was no order to it. People pushed and shoved to get to the front and many of them took their time in getting selfies of themselves in front of the painting. Mass confusion.

Much of Louvre is underground. And, here too, we had to go through security checks by putting our bags on a conveyor belt and us walking through a body scanner. If you see a photo of the place, there is a horseshoe of buildings around the pyramid that is filled with art as well. Another thing that surprised us is that the exit takes visitors through a shopping mall. I mean a mall just like you’d seen anywhere. Numerous stores along the way out. Most tourist sites take visitors through a gift store on the way out but this was a whole shopping center.

Once we exited, we decided to walk down Champs Elysee to the Arc De Triomphe, which was commissioned by Napoleon to commemorate his battle victory in 1805. It was a long hike taking us about 30 minutes to hike. In all, we had walked more than 10 miles and I, for one, was slam give out. We had stopped at an open air street market to eat what amounted to Lupper, lunch and supper. I told Karen I wasn’t going to walk back to the hotel. I opened my Uber app and ordered up a ride to the hotel. It was a 30 minute ride that cost about 14 euros but it was well, well worth it.

The top photo was taken by Karen as we stood in line for the Louvre. It was not only French folks in line. The woman standing behind us, I’m sure, was speaking Russian. The bottom photo is Sainte Chapelle with its story of the Bible in stained glass. It is amazing that the entire edifice was built in just six years.