All's Well That Ends Well

For our full day back in Paris (and final day of the trip), we started with a visit to Musée d'Orsay. This turned out to be more the experience we'd been expecting earlier at the Louvre; this museum is more dedicated to paintings and sculptures. There were works by Degas, Monet, Manet, Van Gogh, and many other famous artists.

We saw Van Gogh's earlier version of The Starry Night -- similar in many ways to the one in New York, but its own unique work.

We saw paintings by Monet of some of the very places we'd just visited ourselves in our road trip out of Paris.

We walked through an exhibit about the Statue of Liberty, showcasing the earlier designs leading up to France's gift to the United States.

And we saw another messed-up cat.

We had to fit in one more picnic lunch before the trip was over, again picking up meats, cheeses, fresh bread, and wine from a small store, then taking it to the banks of the Seine. Then we did a bit of wandering. We'd heard of a few picturesque shopping spots, Gallerie Vivienne and Passage de Panoramas. They were indeed picturesque, but were a limited and upscale form of shopping we weren't really in for. In between those, we stopped in another photo-worthy spot, the Bibliothèque nationale de France, a public library with an impressive reading room.

We lazily passed the afternoon until it was time to visit the Arc de Triomphe. The timing was particular, as we wanted to be there at 6:30 pm, when the nightly flame ceremony takes place to honor fallen soldiers.

The view from the top is arguably one of the better ones in Paris, and a good deal less crowded than the Eiffel Tower. Or at least, we'd imagine. You may recall that we hadn't been able to go to the top of the Tower when we'd tried earlier in the trip. But we didn't have anything else planned for that final evening. So... why not try one more time? I mean, you get tickets in advance so you don't have to wait in any line, but why not wait in line now and see if we get lucky?

And we did! We made it to the second floor observation deck of the Eiffel Tower just in time to witness a beautiful sunset.

And then headed on up to the top for a spectacular night time view of Paris.

Come on... what better way to conclude a trip to Paris than a visit to the Eiffel Tower?