Paris - 5th June

Today we caught the train into Paris.
Our first stop was a visit to the perfume museum 'Fragonard'. It was interesting to see and hear about how perfume is made.
The people who test and invent the perfume are called 'noses' it takes seven years of study and a degree in chemistry to become a Nose.
The noses are able to smell and recognise up to 2000 different scents. They can also detect what individual scents have gone into each perfume. There are only about 20 noses in Europe.
The building itself was more interesting, originally a theatre and then a Velodrome.
Once the smelly stuff started Steven went out and found a coffee shop to sit in.
It was a Velodrome in the 1800's because with the growing popularity of the horseless carriage and the complete non-existence of road rules the streets had become a very dangerous place for cyclists. So Velodromes opened up where people could ride safely.







We went to the look at the Vendome column, it is a column that was directed to be built by Napoleon to celebrate the victory of Austerlitz in Austria in 1805.
It has 425 spiraling Bronze plates around it that were made from the melted canons that were captured from the Austrians.






 



After that we went to a Macaroon shop to hear about how they are made and try a few samples.
They were nice, not very big and $5.00 each, we didn't buy any. Just took some photos.



 
We turned left and headed through Jardindes Tuileries towards The Louvre. Our guide chased away some pick pockets who were pretending to interview tourists, using clipboards while their friends stood behind breaking into back packs.
The Louvre is an enormous building, it contains the famous painting of Mona Lisa. It's generally about 50 people deep to see it.
There are so many exhibits in The Louvre that if you spent 30 seconds looking at each one it would take you 9 months to see them all. Just as we got to The Louvre it started to rain, quite heavily. It's also a little chilly today.
The Louvre was started in the 12th century  so it's about 800 years old.
It was built as a Fortress and converted into a residence in 1546. King Louise declared it too small for his family in 1682 and built one even bigger somewhere else. The Louvre then became a residence for artists, after some transformations and a revolution it was opened as museum in 1791. 
A lot of the Louvre is underground, the big glass pyramid in the courtyard is to get light down into the lower levels.

 


Jumped on boat and went for a cruise down the Seine. Cruised past the sadly burnt out Notre-Dame. It was on our list of visits, but this is about as close as we will get to it.
Had lunch on the boat.




We then went to Montparnasse tower and up to the 210 metre high observation deck, the view was amazing even in the misty rain.
The tower was built in 1969 and generally considered a mistake. It dominates the landscape and two years after it was built a law was passed restricting all buildings in the city centre to 6 levels.
The locals say that the best view of Paris is from the Montparnasse Tower, not because it's so high up but because you can't see Montparnasse Tower from there.

 





We then made our way up to Sacre-Coeur an amazing Roman Catholic church. It was built 1875 and sits in Montmartre on a hill that is the highest point in Paris. We went in and had a look around, they don't allow photos inside the church, it's an amazing space.








From there it was a short walk to our restaurant for dinner. It was a superb meal, We tried the snails, surprisingly they were good. We also ate other peoples snails who ordered them but couldn't face eating them. Tammy had Duck and Steven had Salmon to follow.



 












 

We walked back down the hill into Paris passing by the home of Vincent Van Gogh on the way we also went past Le Bateau Lavoir which is a building where artists meet, they can live here for free if they are painting. It is famous for being the place where Pablo Picasso started the Cubist movement.
On a nice day the little square outside usually has artists working away. Not tonight in the rain.

On the coach and back to the Hotel, another long and fun day.