Paris summary

I haven’t done the math, but I’m sure we got our money’s worth from our museum pass.  I feel like we deserve a certificate :)  From the pass, here’s what we did:

• Musée d’Orsay
• Napoleon’s tomb and the musée de l’armée
• Musée des Plans-Relief
• Centre Pompidou     
• Saint Chapelle
• Notre Dame de Paris crypt
• Notre Dame de Paris tower
• Musée des Arts et Metiers
• Chateau Versailles and gardens
• Louvre
• l’Arc de Triomphe
• Panthéon
• Musée du Monde Arabe / Zaha Hadib exhibit

These were the notable things we did that were not on the pass:

• Notre Dame de Paris
• Chartres cathedral and town
• Eifel tower grounds
• flea market at Clingancourt
• jardin de luxembourg, near our hotel
• Sacre Coeur

Orsay, Plans-relief, Saint Chapelle, Versailles gardens, notre dame crypt and l’arc de triomphe were some of the things we enjoyed the most. That and reading our kobos while picknicking in the Jardin du Luxembourg.

We also had some great people watching.  I saw “harem pants” for the first time in Iceland, but I saw them enough here to realize that my first sighting wasn’t just one oddball.  I hope they do not catch on anymore than they have.
We couldn’t help but compare Paris and New York.  We decided New Yorkers are more attractive on average and Parisians smoke way more.  The metro in New York has the advantage of running later, but in Paris is much cleaner and there are seats in the stations.  However the trains come so frequently that you don’t even have time to sit down or “pre-walk” along the platform.  I also highly recommend the buses of Paris.  They were clean and frequent and the routes are well mapped.
I haven’t looked up the details but they clearly have some heavy taxes on pop/soda because they cost about 3.50 euro in restaurants.  I think this is being discussed in the US as well.  A bottle of wine is really one of the cheapest options.