Eiffel Tower & Musee Marmottan Monet

We began our day with a great bus tour of the city with many historical facts. The architecture here is amazing and are works of art in themselves. We got off the bus and got on a tour boat which allowed us to see the city from a different perspective, still breathtaking !! I am happy to report that the river Seine has receded quite nicely for us. After the cruise our tour guide brought us to the Eiffel Tower where we skipped the line and went straight up to a wonderful lunch at the Tour Eiffel Restaurant. The restaurant was about 368 steps up (we took a cable car up) but after lunch we walked up 300 steps higher to the next look out. Now if you don't know the Euro Cup (soccer) tournament is going on right now so what else but a giant soccer ball is hanging in the middle of the Eiffel Tower. After we were enchanted with the Eiffel Tower from every imaginable angle we hopped in a taxi and saw the Flame of Liberty (a replica but much smaller of our Statue of Liberty). On to the Musee Marmottan Monet where we had the pleasure of viewing original

works by Monet, Renoir, Sisley, and Degas to name a few. The museum was also featuring the exhibition L'Art et L'Enfant which depicted children in art masterpieces ranging in time from approximately 1500 - 1925. Following another taxi ride we found ourselves outside Palais de Chaillot. We did not have time to go in but the outside view of the palace area was still a sight to behold as well as yet another incredible view of the Eiffel Tower. From there we took a short walk to the underground aquarium but by this time we had quite a few bags of souvenirs and they had no bag check so we went on our way. More pictures of the Eiffel Tower by the carousel and then we thought we should call it a day. The food for the day is a tough call between the ganache chocolate mousse on the Eiffel Tower or the strawberry crepe outside the Palais de Chaillot. Lesson for the day : Try to speak the language when it is not your own. Even the taxi driver was polite and tried to help me with pronunciation! No wonder our English Language Learners are so shy; it is hard to speak another language when you don't fully understand it and are surely worried about pronouncing something wrong.