As I mentioned, yesterday was a loooong day. I stated by taking the metro to the suburb of St. Denis to see the St. Denis Basillica. This were all but 3 kings of France are buried (kinda, sorta.) Prior to the Revolution (yes, every story seems to involve the Revolution), all the kings , queens, etc are buried there in the church, with effigies on top of their burial places. During the revolution, the people remove the bodies and put them all into a common pit outside the church. There is a lot more to the story, but you get the gist. The church was gothic, huge, and old, like so many I have seen in Paris. It was also freezing! The effigies/memorials were pretty cool, as you can see in the pictures. One thing I learned is that at death, the heart and stomach were removed and all three were buried seperately (heart, stomach, everything else.) I'm sure I was told why, but I think I've hit information overload.

After that, I can back into the city and went to the Carnavalet Museum, which is dedicated to the history of Paris. It was good; housed in a former mansion. All the signage was in French, but I had my trusty Rick Steves guidebook that had a chapter on the museum.

After that I took a break for an hour or so and braced myself for the Louvre. For the last couple days I'd been removed from the crowds, and I had loved it. I knew the Louvre was put me back into the 'belly of the beast.' Last night was one of two nights each week the Louvre has evening hours, so I showed up around 7, having heard the crowds are less at night. I went in determined not to like it, but I have to admit I enjoyed what I saw. The place is massive, and people had warned me to focus on one or two sections and not try to see everything. I went for the decorative arts wing (think furniture, stained glass windows, decor, etc.) It included a section of rooms called "Napolean's Apartments" that I loved (Napoloean III.) After that I went through some of the scultures, and hit the two biggies, Winged Victory and Venus de Milo. I worked my way towards the Mona Lisa, but ended up blowing it off. I was more curious to see the flurry of activity around it than the actual painting. So I made it about an hour and a half before heading out.

Last night was the first nights of Christmas lights on the Champs Elysses, and I wanted to see the view from the Arc de Triomphe. Engraved on the Arc are nearly 600 names, mostly miliary leaders who served under Napolean, as well as some leaders of the Revolution. I knew our family name (Grillot) was on the Arc, but there are conflicting reports as the whether this Grillot can be traced to my line, but regardless, I wanted to see the name for myself. I wasn't sure how difficult it would be to find it, so I was thrilled when I first walked up to the names and it was the first name I saw! See pics for all this, plus pics of Christmas lights and displays.