One day more <-- Les Mis reference in honor of Victor Hugo

My apologies that I didn't post yesterday. We had a full day of touring and didn't get back to the hotel till after midnight and all of us were absolutely exhausted. Here's a thumbnail of what we did:

1. We conquered almost 400 spiral stairs to the top of Notre-Dame for gorgeous views of the city. 

2. We then visited my most favorite place in Paris, Sainte-Chapelle, built by Louis IX (Saint Louis) to house a piece of the real cross, real nails from the crucifixion and pieces of the crown of thorns. Inside, it is wall-to-wall stained glass.  

3. We ate lunch in the Quartier Latin, a lively area where the university, the Sorbonne is located. 

4. We visited the Pantheon where famous people who did great things for France are buried. These people include: authors Victor Hugo, Emile Zola, Alexandre Dumas, scientists Pierre and Marie Curie, inventor of Braille, Louis Braille, great thinkers Jean-Jacques Rousseau and Voltaire. 

5. We took a little break Parisian-style by chilling out in the Jardins de Luxembourg. There's a palace which is now where their Senate meets, beautiful manicured flower beds and pond where little kids push toy sailboats around with sticks. 

6. We then toured the Palais Garnier aka Opéra Garnier, the old opera house now home to the Paris Ballet. This has to be my second favorite place in Paris and the kids were just as impressed. A little shopping after at the famous Galeries Lafayette. 

6. For dinner, we got to eat outside on the terrace of the restaurant and the towers of Notre-Dame were in plain sight. Not only is sitting outside at a café such a French thing to do but when else do we get to eat admiring an 800-year old gothic cathedral (probably the most famous one in the entire world)?? And some more of that delicious Berthillon ice cream. Yes, yes, I know that we had double dessert but remember those 400 stairs we climbed? And walking all over the city.  We deserved every lick. 

7. We still had one last stop: la Tour Eiffel. Having a 10:30 reservation, we just went and had a little free time in the area underneath and around it until it was time to go up. Chilly, windy, no big deal. We managed. And at the stroke of 11pm, we  had a front-row seat for the sparkling that we saw from Trocadéro last night. Very cool experience. 

Now today is our final full day in Paris because tomorrow we basically just get up and go to the airport. On today's agenda: Versailles and Musée d'Orsay.