Paris - Part 1.

We arrived in Paris around 12:30 pm. We had no problem getting on the metro (aside from purchasing the tickets) to get us to our hotel in the St. Germain district, 6th arrondisement. Our hotel came recommended from one of the partners we work with whose daughter spent a semester abroad and he went to visit a few times. It was charming, from the view from our window: to our key:
Can't misplace that sucker.

We had a late, light lunch and then strolled the lovely streets of Paris. We walked through the fantastic Luxemburg Gardens, saw the Orangerie and found Notre Dame: After about four hours, we came back to the hotel to change for our evening plan, a night bike tour of Paris: Fat Tire Bike Tours offered a four hour, nine mile bike ride around town. I was so glad we did this because all day in London, I kept thinking that I missed my bike. You can cover so much more ground on a bike. We met at the Eiffel Tower: Rode to Notre Dame and saw it at night, learning about the cleaning it recently underwent via laser. We made an ice cream pit stop (delicious). Rode toward the Latin Quarter and then hit the highlight of the tour, riding into the Louvre, with live music playing behind us: From there, it was a boat trip down the Seine with red wine and then a short, reckless ride back to the Eiffel Tower for the light show:

I loved the bike tour. I will say though that it was something that would NEVER HAPPEN in the U.S. We didn't sign any waivers. They didn't provide helmets. Our bikes were cruisers with no lights. A lot of the people on the tour pretty clearly do not ride bikes regularly, or at least do not ride them on big city streets. They did however provide us reflective vests:

City of lights, no doubt.