After leaving the Eiffel Tower we walked to the Arc de Triomphe. In hindsight, it might have been better to take a bus but we generally prefer to walk everywhere. The Arc is surrounded by this crazy roundabout that has about 10 lanes of traffic circling around it. I say "about" because there are no lane markings so it's kind of a free-for-all. Luckily you don't have to cross the street to reach the Arc, there's a tunnel under the road for access. So we went down the tunnel and popped up right under the Arc. Since we had purchased a 2-day museum pass, we got to skip the ticket line here (also at the Louvre and the D'Orsay). Sailed through security and headed up the spiral staircase to the top. I originally wanted to do the Arc at night when the Champs Elysee would be all lit up, but we were starting to get tired and didn't want to come all the way back again later. Nice views up there anyway. We saw a bride and groom having some photos done at the base of the Arc and we saw the memorial flame for the unknown soldier.
We headed back to the hotel to relax a bit and shower. We decided to order room service too and ate it on our balcony but there was no visit from Bob the bulldog tonight.
We were refreshed enough that we walked down to Pont Neuf and took a one hour river cruise past all the top sights, we even saw the lights on the Eiffel Tower twinkle at the top of the hour.
We saw so many people just sitting out along the banks of the river at night that there actually was very little empty space on the banks. Everyone was chatting and drinking and seemed to be enjoying themselves.
Tomorrow we leave Paris for Normany and I realize I haven't even tried a macaron yet! Maybe they will have some at the train station.
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