Paris, the city of love – Day 2

We had Duck Leg Confit and Clam Linguini at Le Petit St Benoit for brunch which are two of the signature French dishes. Because we stayed around Saint-Germaine-Des-Pres we had many choices for good cafe/restaurants.

After brunch, we headed to the Louvre. We bought a 4-Day Paris Museum Pass at 62 Euro, which gave us free entry, without having to queue up. With the museum Pass we also got to visit as many times as we want to the over 50 museums and monuments in and around Paris. Pass options are available for 2, 4 or 6 consecutive days. You can visit the Paris Museum Pass website to find out more.
This is how the Museum pass looks like:

Here we are at the magnificent Louvre.

We didn't have to queue up to buy tickets but the queue for security check was still fairly long (yes, you have to clear security checks to go into the museums in Paris). The photo below was taken when I was queuing up and I kind of like how it is capturing Louvre from a different angle, with the sky and clouds as the background.

We entered the museum after around 30 minutes of waiting and the inside of the museum was just as crowded. Slowly we made our way to the Mona Lisa Portrait, it is the original piece by Leonardo Da Vinci and is so well-protected. One could only admire it from a few meters away. It took me a while to get to the front of the painting and took this precious photo:

We spent the whole afternoon in the Louvre and it was of course not even nearly enough. I wish I could spend a whole month just coming here and appreciate the art pieces but unfortunately time is limited and I had to move on to our next stop, Arc de Triomphe.

Climbing up the Arc de Triomphe was more tiring than I thought, as the spiral staircase was very narrow and steep. But we made it! When you climb to the top, you get an overview of the city of Paris. And here is how it looked: