Paris – Day 5 & Departure

Day 5 Itinerary: Eiffel Tower, Musée Marmottan Monet, Cimetière du Père-Lachaise

Our mentor, Rick Steves, recommends arriving 15 minutes before the Eiffel Tower opens and as usual his advice worked well. Nevertheless, there were many, many people (both individuals and groups) in line before us so we shuffled on for about 40 minutes before we boarded the elevator for the second level. We immediately got into a short line to go to the highest level completing the suggested Eiffel Tower strategy.

We circled the top while I took pictures, even though the view was hazy. We were surprised that there was virtually no wind at the top – I guess we were just lucky. We went back to the second level and took more pictures from there. Most of the views were better from this level because we were closer to the subjects so there was less haze.

After the Eiffel Tower we walked about 45 minutes to the Marmottan Museum. This museum features many works of Monet including some early works and many more water lilies. Alli and Mom visited this museum two years ago and her favourite was still Bras de Seine Pres de Giverney Soleil levant 1897.

We had lunch at as small a patisserie near the museum. After our salad nicoise (Mom) and quiche Lorraine (Ceci) it seemed rude not to choose a dessert. So we split a dessert that was made up of a base of chocolate biscuit followed by layers of chocolate mousse, chocolate cream, chocolate cake and a chocolate glaze. Holding all of this together were ultra thin chocolate wafers. Chocolate heaven.

We were undecided on how to spend our last afternoon in Paris so we consulted our handy guide and determined that we had seen all the three star attractions and all of the two star attractions that interested us. All of a sudden we saw the last item on the one star list: Père Lachaise Cemetery! Intensive study of the metro system revealed that even though it was on the other side of town we could get there with only one transfer and that later we could get back to our hotel with only one transfer.

The visit to the cemetery was the perfect choice. We’ve been racking up the museums at quite the rate so a stroll along cobblestone roads shaded by tall trees was just what we needed. We visited some of the more illustrious residents of the cemetery: Chopin, Molière, Edith Pief, Colette, Champollion, Oscar Wilde and Jim Morrison. We even managed to follow the tour in our guidebook without getting lost!

For our last dinner in Paris we ate at and Italian restaurant on Rue Clar. It was an amazing meal of antipasto, red wine, gnocchi in pesto sauce and of course dessert! It was a great way to cap off a lovely vacation.

The next morning we took a shuttle to the airport. The check-in line was ridiculously line but Mom managed to figure out how to check in at a kiosk so we only had to line up to drop off our luggage. We had a decent flight back to Toronto and them Mom and I parted ways at the entrance to Canadian customs. Mom went on and flew home to Ottawa and I went to the transfer lounge, picked up my luggage and cleared US customs before my flight to Seattle. I was back in my apartment about 22 hours after we left the hotel in Paris.