We had a late night for us since we went to the Moulin Rouge show last night. This morning came pretty early as we had a tour booked and needed to leave by 8:45. We met our guide, Laurita--from Brazil, outside of the Cafe Regis on the Isle de Sainte Louis right on time. We had a chocolate croissant with a café au lait, and then left for Notre Dame. It wasn't really raining, but it was very wet and cold and neither of us had dressed appropriately. All that she had to tell us was very interesting, but all I wanted to do was get in out of the wet. We finally did and I learned a great deal, in spite of her thick accent. One story she shared with us concerned the doors of Notre Dame. The man who was commissioned to make them was given a short amount of time to get them finished and he realized he was not going to make his deadline. The devil appeared before him and said he would help the man in exchange for his soul. The man said NO! He did not want to spend eternity in Hell. Well, he worked all day and night, with nothing to eat or drink and fell asleep. When he awoke, the doors were finished! He didn't know how this could be, but he was worried that in his fatigue, maybe he'd made a deal with the devil after all. In any case, the doors were hung and it was only afterwards that the man saw several places where the devil's mark appears--we found a few of them, our guide told us there are many more! Kind of ironic since they are hung on the church! Oh, and one more note--on the morning of the grand opening of the church, the doors would not open until they had been blessed by the priest and sprinkled with holy water! We were supposed to tour the Medieval Museum but there was a glitch w the tickets, so she took us to see the Conciergerie, which was the prison where Marie Antoinette spent her final days. It's a beautiful building and Laurita was very knowledgeable, so we enjoyed the tour. Next was Sainte Chapelle--I'm sure the pictures won't due it justice, because it's just too beautiful to try to capture on film. There was a bride and groom having pictures made while we were there, so we had to get one of them. Our tour ended and we were frozen at this point and could only think about getting home and warming up. We decided to stop for lunch at a neighborhood place, Convention Cafe, and had a beer and a croque Monsieur, a grilled ham and cheese w the cheese on the outside. Yum!! After putting on some more clothes, we headed back out to try to find the Picasso Museum. I had my Paris map and between the two of us, we managed to get there. I loved the one in Barcelona but this one was a bit of a let down. It was pretty crowded too, so that didn't help. After we left there, we had a glass of wine at the apt and then decided to grab a bite at the restaurant next door, Via del Gusto. We shared a pizza and a grilled veggie salad...quite tasty! We are now pooped!