Day 3 - March 20th, 2024

Our second day in Paris began with breakfast at our hotel near Aéroport de Paris-Orly. Then we boarded our tour buses to downtown Paris for a guided bus tour of Paris with local tour guides. On Bus #1, our tour guide was a retired teacher, Leif, a Swedish expat who taught high school history. The guy was hilarious, but he took us all around downtown Paris and showed us some of the most world renowned landmarks of the city. 

We saw the Arc de Triomphe, Notre Dame, a bookstore: Shakespeare and Company (where Ernest Hemingway used to hang out to find inspiration while living in Paris), the French Military Academy and the building that houses Napoleon Bonaparte's tomb, the Avenue des Champs-Élysées where the Louis Vuitton hotel is being built in the shape of a giant Louis Vuitton suitcase.

While on our bus tour we saw an official motorcade race past us that featured multiple mounted motorcycle police officers and pristine black police sedans. Our bus tour guide noted that a lot of national representatives were in town due to the recent death at age 102 of Charles de Gaulle's son. He also noted that they were ramping up plans for an upcoming memorial service, as well.

At the conclusion of our bus tour, we arrived at the world renowned Musée du Louvre (The Louvre). One cannot accurately describe the sheer magnitude of this museum and there's no mistaking that it is the largest museum in the world.

While at the Louvre, many of us took the opportunity to see the Mona Lisa by Leonardo da Vinci and the ancient Greek sculpture, the Venus de Milo. Seeing these works and countless other works in our short time there was incredible. Having taken art history courses in college and having coached Academic Decathlon in the past, I had to keep pinching myself that I was actually able to take in the experience of seeing these historical masterpieces in person. It was a profound experience!

During the same time everyone was at the Louvre, our large tour group spilt into two groups with one group spending the full extent of our allotted time at the Louvre while the other half went to the château de Versailles (Palace or Versailles). 

The group that went to Versailles all came back and shared stories of its remarkable opulence and how everything was incredibly over the top.

The group that stayed back in Paris was given free time to explore the neighborhood surrounding Notre Dame and the Hôtel de Ville, the city hall of Paris. 

After the other half of our group had returned from Versailles, we all reassembled and headed to dinner at a small restaurant in the Île Saint-Louis where dinner consisted of a hearty slow-roasted beef stew and mashed potatoes, which everyone really enjoyed.

Following dinner, our EF Tour Directors decided on a meeting point and we all were set out to explore the city of Paris and the area surrounding Notre Dame. My small group enjoyed experiencing an authentic Parisian Cafe, Notre Dame Cathedral illuminated, and photo opportunities galore in front of police headquarters, Hôtel de Ville that was decked out for the upcoming 2024 Summer Olympics in Paris.

Once our free time concluded our entire group rendezvoused at our meeting point to regroup and take attendance before our next adventure: the Paris Métro. To experience the subway in such a large city was amazing and also absolutely terrifying for some of our travelers. Unfortunately, there was an unexpected highlight of the subway trip back to the hotel. As we were about to exit our first train, a local woman began choking and Mr. E had to step in and perform the Heimlich maneuver. She was incredibly thankful.

Following our transfer to our second train, we arrived at our hotel for our last night in Paris.

To be continued...