Our last port before we disembark was LeHavre, in Normandy.\u00c2\u00a0 We chose the Princess tour to Paris, which included a brief city tour as well as a guided tour of the Louvre, then lunch at the Eiffel Tower.\u00c2\u00a0 It’s pretty hard to say you didn’t experience Paris, after you’ve eaten lunch at the Eiffel Tower.\u00c2\u00a0 The Louvre was not surprisingly crowded, but surprisingly hot, which made it difficult to keep\u00c2\u00a0 the kids engaged.\u00c2\u00a0 But we did see the Venus De Milo, Winged Victory, and of course the Mona Lisa.<\/p>\n
Mona Lisa was interesting. This is a piece of art that many humanities and art teachers refer to, to demonstrate the introduction of “point perspective” – that is to say, oversimplified, that artwork began to use visual angles to give the appearance of perspective.\u00c2\u00a0 All boiled down, you’re supposed to view Mona Lisa from various different angles, and no matter where you view her, her eyes are always “looking at you” – not forward, but toward you.\u00c2\u00a0 But you can’t.\u00c2\u00a0 There are ropes keeping you surprisingly far away (I would have expected to be able to get just a bit closer – it still required a bit of optical zoom on the camera to get a good shot) and getting to the front of the rope isn’t managed at all – just a big muddle of people jockeying.\u00c2\u00a0 Moving from one side at the ropes to the other side of the room, still at the ropes, would have required an iron constitution.\u00c2\u00a0 A queue would do a lot of good here.<\/p>\n
The Louvre tour was expectantly short, only about an hour, then we made our way back to the bus and toward the Eiffel Tower for lunch.\u00c2\u00a0 You can’t help but be a bit overwhelmed, eating lunch in a fine dining restaurant on the first level of the Eiffel Tower.<\/p>\n
After lunch, we were a bit pressed for time and the elevators going back down were all full, so we had to take the stairs down.\u00c2\u00a0 Yes, there are stairs.\u00c2\u00a0 Back on the ground, we made our way back to the bus, and then started the long (2.5 hours) drive back to the ship at LeHavre.<\/p>\n
It was a great experience for everyone, albeit a bit crowded and hot.\u00c2\u00a0 Not sure I’d do it again, but I’m glad we did it this trip.<\/p>\n