Back to Paris

Photo 1: Oh no, the Louvre is closed on Tuesdays.

Photo 2: This is the elevator shaft at the Hotel Monpensier. An oak box rides up and down it. Inside it looks like a scaled down version of Superman's phone booth. It holds one person and one roll around suitcase. Since we were on the 2nd floor (3rd in the US) and had lots of luggage we used it.

Tuesday morning, Sept 22, we turned our little Twingo over to Avis and boarded the TGV train to Paris. Nonstop less than 3 hours later we were at the Gare Lyon station in Paris. By 1 pm we were back at the Hotel Montpensier.

We decided to spend the afternoon at the Louvre, just a block and half away. Turns out it is closed on Tuesday so we wondered around the Tuilleries Gardens and went back to the room. We had a nice dinner at a nearby brasserie and went to bed early. We had to leave for the airport at 7:30 am Wednesday morning.

The plane flights were the only really disagreeable part of the trip. We weren't sure we would get on the plane in Paris. There was some sort of game going on with boarding passes. We made it and left for Chicage at 11:30. Why Chicago? Who knows. But we had a 6 hour layover there. Two hours of that was taken up with walking the mile out of the international terminal to customs, going through customs, and rechecking our bags. Then the plane was an hour late leaving.

We finally arrived home at 1:15am Thursday, Sept 24, 2009