April 3, 1999 – Paris, France
Today’s Itinerary: The Louvre, Tour Eiffel, Lunch, Versailles, Elegant Dinner, La Scala
Tonight’s Hotel: Hotel Sofitel
Morning Departure Time: 10:30?
Today we had a great continental breakfast, which consisted of croissants, bread, eggs, bacon, etc. We headed off to the Louvre, by Metro after finishing breakfast. We stood in line for about half an hour only because we cut in line. We saw Mona Lisa, sort of, everyone was crowded around it. We also saw the Winged Victory and the Venus de Milo, two famous statues. After seeing those, our group left the Louvre and walked through the Tuileries to the Place de la Concorde Metro station. We rode the Metro to the Tour Eiffel. The wait for the Tour Eiffel was incredibly long, about an hours wait. We cut in line again and the wait was less than 30 minutes! Clouds marred the view from the top, but you could still see. We finished with the Tour Eiffel in an hour and rushed back to the hotel to catch the bus to Versailles. Versailles is quite large and it took most of the afternoon to tour it. Also, about six from our group and a few from the other group got lost for one and a half hours. One person got separated from the other group and it took us about half an hour to find her, she was heading toward the RER station, outside of Versailles. After finding her, we went back to the hotel to change for dinner, but we had a couple of hours to do so. Dinner, at Les Grands Marches in the Place de la Bastille, was the best I’ve had yet. I ordered Le Chateaubriand au Grill, avec Bearnaise and a Pinacolada, which was very strong. We went to La Scala after dinner. La Scala is a discotheque near the Louvre. We had so much fun, and we stayed until 01:50! The Metro was closed so we had to take a taxi back to the hotel. This is a day I will never forget!
I found some old travel journals and have decided to post them in a series I am unimaginatively calling “Time Travel.” Here is the eighth entry, verbatim, from my 1999 spring break trip to Italy and France. I don’t have any digital pictures from this trip as that was before I got a digital camera.
