Day 7: Charge!

Our final full day in Paris started off with Nancy going to the top of Notre Dame to enjoy the great views and to see the gargoyles and bell towers up close. We then walked along the river past the Louvre to Katie's favorite park in the Jardin Tuileries. She rode the carousel but, unfortunately, the trampoline park was closed. She bounced back nicely though (pardon the pun) and went shopping with Nancy. They had fun and one of the stores even gave Katie a balloon!

I went to one of the largest and oldest war museums in the world, the Musee de l'Armee. It was created 130 years ago to house over 50,000 artifacts from antiquity, the middle ages, Napoleonic wars, and the World Wars. They had enough suits of armor in there to basically outfit an army. In one room, a row of armor looked across at a row of muskets. It seemed like a cruel thing to do to the suits of armor since the musket is what made them obsolete. Now they have to stare at them forever, cursing them in French accents ("Your mother was a hamster and your father smelt of elderberries...").

The French take on the American Revolution was interesting. They seemed to take a bit more credit for the victory than the Americans give them, but a win is a win. It was also interesting to see how many wars have been waged in Europe over the last 600 years. With so many groups of people in a finite space, they were destined to fight for more land over and over and over again. That's how Kings and Queens were made.

The military museum is located in Les Invalides which was built as an enormous military hospital in 1670. Now it houses the military museum and Napoleon's tomb, which was as grandiose and arrogant as he was (example: during his reign, he renamed the Louvre to the Musee Napoleon).

After the museum, I strolled home along the river and stopped at a few gift shops. Then I met up with Katie and Nancy for dinner on Ile St Louis and some more shopping.

Tomorrow we leave Paris around noon and we're very sad about it. This has been an amazing trip and we can't believe how fast it went by.

Au revoir Paris! A bientot!

(Photos from today will be posted later)