October & November - Trip to France & Monaco

Candy and I went to France and Monaco to celebrate our first anniversary.  We started out in Paris, where on our first day we attended Mass at the Cathedral de Notre Dame, then walked along the River Seine past the Place de la Concorde and the Assemblé Nationale to Les Invalides where we saw Napoleon’s Tomb. From there we walked to the Champs de Mars.  While we were in Paris, there was a strike of all of the museum and monument workers, so when we arrived at our next destination, the Louvre, we were disappointed to find it closed.  The second day we started out at the Arc de Triomphe, only to find that it too was closed due to the strike.   We walked down the Champs-Élysées to the Place de la Concorde where we rode the Grand Roue.  We visited the Opéra Nationale, before taking a twilight cruise on the Seine to see La Ville Lumière all lit up.  On the third day, we went to Montmartre where we visited Sacre Cœur, before walking through Pigalle to the Moulin Rouge.  Next we went to the top of the Eiffel Tower, which offered an incredible view of the city.  On our fourth day, we went to the Sorbonne and the Pantheon.  There we saw the graves of such luminaries of French history as Voltaire, Louis Braille, and the Curies. (more…)