City of Lights

DAY 4 ***

Being Sunday, all the shops in Paris were closed, so today was DS' chance to indulge his interest in dinosaurs by taking a trip to the Natural History Museum of Paris.

We started the day with morning prayers at Notre Dame- we thought it was Mass, but it turned out to be Vespers. It was all in Latin and French.

On route to the Natural History Museum of Paris we came across the Pantheon, where many famous identities such as Victor Hugo, Alexander Dumas, and Pierre & Marie Curie are buried in the catacombs beneath the former church.

It is also the site for the Pendulum Experiment which proved the rotation of the earth. The Pendulum hangs and swings from the inside apex of the dome and continues to run to this day.

We then walked through the gardens of the Palace of Luxembourg, still filled with people even on a cold winter's day. There were people sailing R/C boats in the pond and an extraordinary amount of people jogging through the park. 



We finally located the Natural History Museum which was in the Botanical Gardens of Paris. We visited the Muesuem of Palaeontology and Comparitive Anatomy, where we saw the hall of bones, a long room showing skeletons of modern animals, including a Balein Whale!!!

Upstairs was the dinosaur section, complete with everything from Mammoths and Sabertooth Cats to Diplodicus and Allosaurus.

Our stay in Paris would not be complete without a visit to the Eiffel Tower at night. Before dinner, we strolled through the Christmas markets, just at the base of the Trocadero, where we bought some 'Winter Woolies' i.e. beanies and scarves.

We had booked a dinner on the second level of the tower at 58 Tour Eiffel, from which we could see the lights of Paris. A grand finale to our stay in Paris!!

Tomorrow we're off to Strasbourg to see family!!!