Welcome to the gun show....

July 29th--Since it was the middle of the week, we decided that it would be a good day to go to some of the museums around Paris. We were hoping to go through them fairly quickly and avoid a big crowd. We headed out toward the Rodin Museum, but first stopped at the Cafe right next door for lunch. We had what is becoming our standard Paris lunch fare....hot dogs for the kids (Paris style - in a baguette covered in cheese and toasted), Croque Monsieur for Mike (grilled ham and cheese sandwich) and salad and onion soup for me. After lunch, we went to the Rodin Museum and were pleasantly surprised when we all got in free. We only wanted to go to the Garden of the museum (where the Thinker is located) so that, combined with having children with us, got us in free. Can't beat that! The Rodin Museum is filled with works by the greatest sculptor since Michelangelo, Auguste Rodin. We immediately entered the Garden to see the Thinker. Abby and Austin were especially excited to see it because they recently saw the movie Night at the Museum 2 with the Thinker in it. We all enjoyed posing like the Thinker and doing "welcome to the gun show" poses (that only makes sense to those who have seen the movie). We continued walking through the Garden to see more of Rodin's greatest works. From the Rodin Museum, we walked for a good while before reaching the Orsay Museum. The Orsay Museum is filled with 19th century art including Europe's greatest impressionist collection. The museum used to be an old train station so that in itself was impressive. We imagined what it was like when trains came into the station for a minute before heading upstairs to the Impressionist rooms. Upstairs we saw paintings by Monet, Renoir and Van Gogh before heading back down to exit the museum. We were able to get through the museum fairly easy and quickly. Since we still had some time in our day, we decided to head for Notre Dame Cathedral and climb the tower. The kids still wanted to see if they could find The Hunchback. On the way to the cathedral, we stopped into some shops to get a couple of souvenir type items. Upon arriving at Notre Dame Cathedral, we stood in line to make the 400 steps climb to the top of the tower. Luckily, there were breaks along the way to the top. At the halway mark, we got to see the gargoyles. It was great to see them that close. Our final climb was up the bell tower to actually get a close up view of the big bell that was rung by Quasimodo (The Hunchback). The kids were still looking for him, but couldn't understand why he wasn't up there. After our quick descent down the tower, we decided to go to Sainte-Chapelle since we were close by. Unfortunately, we arrived at 5:30 and that is when the ticket office closes. So, we just headed back to the apartment for dinner, baths and a lot of blogging.