Paris, July 8

Saturday, July 8
Paris

Today was a “rest day.” We’ve seen everything that we considered essential on our first trip to Paris, so today the couples decided to split up and do their own thing. More... Gary and I had breakfast at our favorite bistro, did some laundry back at the apartment, then headed out to the Musée de l’Armée (Army Museum), the national museum dedicated to the military history of France.

We tried to make brief visits to all of the collections it contained, but we spent the most time in the Modern Department (which contains artifacts from Louis XIV to Napoleon III, 1643 to 1870) and the Contemporary Department (1875 through the two World Wars). There’s also a whole section devoted to Charles de Gaulle, the leader of the Free French Forces during World War II and the founder of the Fifth Republic.

After the museum, we headed over to the Dôme des Invalides behind the museum to see the tomb of Napoleon. Actually, the church containing the tomb is only a small part of a whole complex of buildings known as the Hotel National des Invalides (the National Residence of the Invalids). It was founded by King Louis XIV in 1670 as a hospital and retirement home for wounded and elderly soldiers. Over the years it has expanded to include various monuments and museums, including the Musée de l’Armée.

Napoleon died in exile on the island of St. Helena in 1821 and was initially buried there, but King Louis-Phillipe arranged for his remains to be brought back to France in 1840. They were first buried in the Chapelle Saint-Jerome in the Invalides, then moved to the church in 1861 in a permanent sarcophagus of red quartzite on a green granite base.

Dinner was steak leftovers back at the apartment. When the others got back, we all sat in the kitchen until late drinking wine and filling each other in on what we had done that day. (John and Yvonne had visited the Modern Art Museum of the City of Paris, which they said was not worth it – unless you consider an exhibit of nails a work of art.)

So now we’ve done all of the “touristy” things of Paris and can check it off our bucket list. The next time we visit, we can just relax and try to live like real Parisians.

Tomorrow we start on our cycling trip. . .