Places to See Before...

Arc de Triomphe, Paris

Recently we were having lunch

and Rob mentioned he read an

article on "must see" places in the

world and how we had been or

are about to visit quite a few of them.

This is one of them.

On a beautiful Spring day in

Paris we left our place in the

Marias and walked over to the

Louvre.  We bumped into a guy

at an ATM that had been on the

same train with us from the

airport, I remember because he

had asked to borrow Rob's pen.

Small world.

From the Louvre we walked through

the Orangerie & the Garden of

Tuilleries and up the Champs Elysees.

The Arc de Triomphe is one

of those must see places in the

world.  As we were going inside

we were behind a very old woman

who looked like she was struggling

with every step, but she was

determined to make it.  I turned

to my brother and said,

"this is why we have to do this

while we are young."

We hiked up the circular

staircase to the top.

And were treated to sweeping

views of Paris, the Eiffel Tower

in this direction.

Le Defense in this direction.

And a view of the route we

had just walked from the Louvre.

Here are the kids, they look so

young here.  It looked like it

was tradition to kiss at the top

of the arch.  Of course , it was

Paris and there is so much kissing

going on everywhere, but to keep

up the tradition we made sure

to get a few kisses in.

By the way, we took the

elevator back down...