Day 7 : Arc de Tromphe - Eiffel Tower - River Seine Cruise - Shopping

Paris is really beautiful. It was a pity that I did not have a chance to explore the city further. Must come back one day!

Arc de Triomphe

We merely made a photo stop here; did not have a chance to go near the arch even! 

Then we drove by Champs-Elysees, and glimpsed at all the luxury brand shops lined along both sides of the road.

 LV Flagship store at Champs Elysees ... look at all those people queuing up when the shop isn't even open yet!! 

Champs Elysees led to Place de la Concorde ....

Approaching Place de la Concorde - a public square, the biggest in France 

The obelisk of Luxor at the centre of the square. The obelisk is purportedly 3000 years old and once stood at the entrance of Luxor Temple in Egypt

Fountain of River Commerce and Navigation, one of the 2 fountains here at the square; The fountain dates back to 1840! 

Next, we drove to Palais Louvre. Nope, did not go into the museum. Merely had a photoshoot at the Lourve Pyramid. What a pity. 

Palais Lourve 

Lourve Pyramid  

The next photo stop .... 

Dome des Invalides 

That's where Napoleon's tomb is 

Next, we went to Eiffel Tower. And we wasted 3 hours here to queue up to go to the observation deck at level 2. Had it been up to me, I'd not go up at all. But since it was in the itinerary, the tour guide had to bring us regardless. 

Eiffel Tower .... 

I'd just passed the first security checkpoint at this stage ...  

We were at the Eiffel Tower grounds queuing up for the longest time .....  

View from the top

We couldn't really go round the deck, as it was just overly crowded!  What's worse was that we had only 15 minutes there ... and we had to queue up for the lift to go down again. 

AL and I lingered a bit .... and we found that the others were already gone! We saw the big crowd queuing for the lift .... and both of us decided to walk down .... 

Walking down the tower ....  

 A busk of Gustave Eiffel, the engineer whose company designed and built the tower

The landmark of Paris ....

At this point, I was walking back to the bus ... 

It was already about 2.00 p.m. and I was super hungry .... and we were taken to La Fontaine de Jade for lunch.  

Lunch was not bad. Perhaps it's because I was hungry. After lunch, we went on the Seine River cruise. It was hot ..... and

Beautiful scenery ... 

But the I wanted to see Notre Dame the most ... and all I could glimpse of it was this ... 

Sigh .... wished I could see more of Notre Dame, though. 

 We sailed past Eiffel Tower again .... 

Pont Alexandre III

The most beautiful bridge in Paris ... 

After the cruise, we went shopping at Galleries La Fayette ... but the thing was that we only had about an hour to do so. I went to Louis Vuitton to check out the prices .... but ended up buying a Longchamp Neo for €116.00 after tax rebate. 

We then went for dinner .... an early dinner at a place named Chez Eduoard.

 Escargot 

I liked it. It was so yummy! 

French bread to cleanse the palate ... 

 My piece of steak 

 Apple pie 

We then drove back to Orly, where our hotel was. 

 I wound down with a cup of tea.