Before I go into detail about our daily activities, let me make note about our hotel, the Hotel St. Pierre.   It is a 2-star hotel that is located perfectly in the Latin Quarter.   Two metro lines intersect within 150 yards of the hotel, there is a great patisserie serving hot chocolate with clouds of whipped cream just a few steps down.  People are enjoying breakfast at a café next door.   I’ve just devoured my second falafel of the trip  from a snack joint right across the street.   You can buy $7.50 lattes at your choice of 2 Starbucks within 100 yards of the place.   The Cluny museum is steps away.     The rooms are small.  However, they are clean, comfortable, and quiet.   The rooms are well-heated in this cold Paris winter and nothing beats a hot shower after a day of touring.   Mhamed, our host at the hotel, has displayed nothing but grace and hospitality towards the guests.

Anyway, we started with our morning meeting at about 9:45 a.m.   I adjusted our itinerary for the desires of the group.  We all decided to travel over the Rodin museum.   People were impressed with the snow-covered grounds and wandered right over to “The Thinker”.  What’s nice about traveling this time of year are the lack of crowds and the ease that we can get up and close to what we want to see.   The group spent about 75 minutes in the museum.

We then took the short walk over to Napoleon’s Tomb.  It is an impressive building with the dismembered remains of the great conquerer entombed in the giant sarcophagus. 

From that point some in the group decided to go over to the adjoining Army Museum.  I highly recommend it for its excellent World War II exhibit where you learn how Charles DeGaulle won the war.  However, they didn’t quite make it after I explained that we were going for lunch on rue Cler, the street made famous by Rick Steves.   Our group split into groups and ate at restaurants that struck their fancy.   We dined at Tribeca, which I thought would be very touristy, but actually was quite good.  We were actually able to dine outside because like most cafes, heaters keep the area warm.

After strolling around the shops and boutiques of rue Cler, we walked over to the Eiffel Tower where we got some great shots.   From there we hopped on the #69 bus.  It takes you from the Eiffel Tower, through the 7^th, into the St. Germain area, and across the Seine.  We cruised along the river with great views of the Louvre, dramatic view of Ile de la Cite.  We wound through the Marais, but at that time, five of us were asleep from exhaustion!   We got off at Pere Lachaise cemetery, metro’d it back to the hotel for an hour break.   At 7 p.m.  nine of headed over to Chartier.  On the way we encountered the other 8 members of our group who split with us at rue Cler.  They too had been hopping on and off the #69 bus (which they could do because we all have Navigo passes), shopping their way through Paris.