London and Paris!: Paris a pied....

Since arriving in Paris on Saturday, Thomas and I have quite literally walked all across the city. Because we're doing the Paris Museum Pass (a see-it-all-in-and-out-privileges pass) and because of the holiday closures of some of the museums, we decided to do all the outdoor walking and sights that we could to help get a feel for the city and also get ourselves oriented before doing all the museum stuff.

I can't even keep straight where we were on each day anymore. We have walked the entire right and left banks, basically making a big loop from one end of central Paris to the other. I'm talking 5-6 hours of walking every day. It's been epic, but fantastic!

For New Year's Eve we wandered about the city and then decided to pick up a gourmet picnic dinner (rather than shell out $200+ on an overpriced dinner) with already cooked lamb chops, roasted potatoes, a freshly baked baguette, stinky cheese, red wine and chocolate mousse for dessert. It was so good! Afterwards we strolled about on the ile de la cite near Norte Dame in a tiny park we had all to ourselves for about 15 minutes. (It's hard to have anything to yourself in Paris at any time of day or night,) Then we headed over to the beautiful Sacre Coeur to view the fireworks and Eiffel Tower light show at midnight (with a few thousand other people). So beautiful!

Today we meandered around a very quiet Paris since most of it was closed, but we went to the Eiffel Tower and climbed it. It was beautiful but freezing! The wind was so bad we decided not to go to the top, the second floor was bad enough! It was still an amazing experience though and we had a great time.

Here are a few pictures we snapped from our day: