Day Six

Musée du Louvre, Notre Dame, Parc des Buttes-Chaumont

5th April '14
9.9 miles walked
824 photos taken

The day I had been waiting for the entire trip — it was finally sunny! I left the hotel early to get in line at the Musée du Louvre before it opened at 9am. As one of the largest museums in the world, containing over 35,000 items, including the Mona Lisa and Vénus de Milo, you could easily spend several days at the Louvre.

As soon as I made my way in, via the shorter line since I had a museum pass, I followed the many signs pointing to the location of Leonardo da Vinci's Mona Lisa. Had I come 30 minutes later, the expansive room housing the Mona Lisa would have been packed with hundreds of people.

After spending a few hours inside the Louvre, I met up with Anand at Le Café Marly — an adjacent brasserie. Then I trekked to the Palais-Royal and surrounding area before once again hitting up the Notre Dame — I couldn't resist taking more shots now that it was sunny! — and walking through Le Passage du Grand-Cerf in the 2nd.

We then made a point to walk to Île Saint-Louis to get ice cream from Berthillon on this particularly warm day.

Parc des Buttes-Chaumont

Before taking a break for the day, we took a cab to the 19th to visit one of the largest parks in Paris.

That time I met Kate Upton

For the last meal of the trip I made reservations at L'Avenue, a restaurant not too far off the Champs-Élysées in the 8th. About 20 minutes after we were seated on the patio, a black S-class rolled up to the front and out stepped Leslie Mann and then Kate Upton.


After I finished my meal I went up to them to ask for a photo. They politely declined as they didn't want to draw more attention to them, but they shook my hand and asked what I did. That led to a short conversation about Twitter before I was on my way.

Fin.

France COLLECTION
© Paul Stamatiou