What a difference a day makes. I woke up to cloudy skies and could see that it had rained sometime in the night. It was not, however, raining at that time.

I wanted to see the Notre Dame and Louvre today and had thought about doing a bus tour. There weren’t any pickup locations very close to me so I decided to take the Metro down to Notre Dame area.

After wandering around trying to find the Metro station, I finally found one. I then ended up backtracking probably 2 blocks underground until I got to the stop I meant to go to in the first place! I have been able to find my way around here much easier than Florence. That was the first time I got a bit out of place.

By the time I got down to the area of Notre Dame and the Louvre it had been at least an hour, what with my wandering and dithering. I got off at the Hotel de Ville, which to my surprise I found a mall! Then I wandered around again trying to find Notre Dame. When I finally found the place where the buses were taking off, I wasn’t sure I would have time to do that and make it to my food tour. So, I decided to walk around and look at the places as best I could. I had a Rick Steves download on his app this time, but forgot about it until I was already past most of the places! Duh!

Notre Dame was quite a sight to see. It is amazing to think that construction started in 1160. Actually, so many of the buildings I have seen are just incredible when you consider there were no cranes or power tools to assist in the building of them.

The Louvre was also quite an amazing structure as were many of the other buildings I saw as I walked around. It started raining again and I had a food tour at 3:30, so I went into a cafe to sit and get out of the rain.

By this time, it was raining and I was a bit hungry and wanted to sit for a while. I went into the Cafe Blanc which was very close to the Louvre and to the Hotel Louvre where I figured I could catch a taxi to take me to the start of the tour. I had no idea how to find it on my own.

I ordered a salmon quiche since I didn’t want to eat too much as I was going on a food tour, but wanted something. Well, it was quite a large piece of quiche and came with a nice salad. I tried to stretch the eating out so I could go straight to the meeting place for the tour, but I still got there almost an hour early. And, it was raining pretty well by that time.

I had a great food tour and will post more about it after I get home. I am almost ready to leave for the airport and, hopefully, get on a flight to home! Can’t wait to see you all. Will do a brief post if I do not make flight to let you know.

Bon Voyage!