Paris, Part Two

Continuing from where I left off:

The Champs Elysées and the areas that are on either side of it form a really long line of tourist sights, from the Louvre at one end, all the way to the L'Arc de Triomph.  The map of Paris that I got from the hostel was pretty detailed as far as sightseeing goes, but the size of the city, and the walking distance between all of these seems a lot shorter than it actually is.

Above is a picture from the Place de la Condord, with the Arc in the background.  While it looks fairly close, the Champs Elysées is actually about several miles (or kilometers, if you prefer) long.  Yes, I walked all of it.

From the Arc, I started my walk to the Stereotypical image of Paris, the Eiffel Tower.  Once again, it was a long walk- across the River Seine even, but being a tower and all, it's really not terribly hard to find.

It is possible to go up in the tower, but every tourist and their entire family wants to do the same, and waiting in line for literally half my vacation didn't seem like fun.

After seeing all that, there wasn't anything terribly specific that I wanted to see, so I just started walking.  I saw a big gold-domed building off in the distance, so I started to walk to it, and, with little effort, I turned up at the Hotel des Invalides, a really nice piece of Architecture by Napoleon.

Pictures were taken.  More walking ensued.  Somehow, I crossed the river once again, and found myself at a really fancy looking building with a statue of Winston Churchill, the English WWII General.

Continuing on, I retraced my steps a little bit to go back to the Louvre- seeing the line to go in, I backed away, took my pictures and left- art doesn't really suit me anyways.

My last bit of walking for the day took me back to the Hostel, where I hug out with my new French friend Sylvan, and prepared for the next, the final, day...