Europe Trip 2016 was on! We made it to the airport and were ready to cross the ocean to see France, Switzerland, and Germany.
Successful group shot – only one person closed their eyes.
On the plus side, this gave people a chance to watch a full movie on the touchscreens, snapchat 3,721 selfies, or video 11 dozen passes by the flight attendants.
The travelers ate their second dinner, and then most people tried to sleep. Parents, just in case their are spinal issues later, you should know that some of your children slept FACE DOWN on their seat trays. It was painful just to look at.
Anyone with a functioning spine could raise their heads to see this just before we landed.
It was serious business.
There was only one thing to do; add our selfie stick to the forest of selfie sticks surrounding the Arc de Triomphe.
At the top, we could see the whole city center.
There are great views of the Eiffel Tower…
…And Sacre Cour on MontMarte.
The next step was to take a walk down the Champs-Elysees, home of many high-end shops.
But first, more stairs.
On the Champs-Elysees, dreams were fulfilled.
We ambitiously walked all the way to Place de la Concorde, about 1.2 miles from the Arc de Triomphe. It was a nice, cool day for a walk, although the combination of stops at expensive shops, photo ops with Ferraris and Lambourguinis, and jet lag resulted in the walk talking over an hour. At the Place de la Concorde, there was a metro stop that had a direct line back to the hotel. We had a bit of a problem, though, actually locating the metro in the giant square.
Pro tip – not a metro stop.
With the help of someone at the false metro stop above, we located the real metro stop and returned to the hotel in time to shower before dinner.
