Paris Day 2 - Napoleons Tomb, River Cruise, and New Years Eve

Happy New Years Eve!

Our first stop for day was Napoleons Tomb. My brother was feeling terribly ill so M, my parents, and I boarded the subway for Les Invalides. The museum/memorial where his body is held is a little bit tricky to figure out. Theres courtyards, part of it is open to the public, and buildings you need to circle in order to get there after you buy your tickets.

For such a small man he sure has a large memorial & tomb. The thing is massive. There are other important people buried around him but his is just ridiculous.

It was apparently built so you could only bow to look at him. Lil bit of a narcissist.

After we looked around the museum for a bit, we decided it was to cold for people to be outside so we stayed in until it was time for our dinner cruise.

My unofficial review of the dinner cruise: disappointed. We bought a fairly cheap one so you get what you pay for. But about a week or so after we booked a 7:30PM cruise they pushed us back to 6:00PM. Really the last thing we wanted on New Years Eve. Then once we arrived they gave us a table someone had already sat down at. The previous diners took the champagne bottles, drank out of the water glasses and left a half eaten roll on the table. We tried to explain to the waiter but they just seemed annoyed. The cruise was nice, a little foggy, and the food was mediocre. We originally booked the cruise because we were worried everything would be booked on New Years eve, but looking back we wish we took our chances and just found a place to eat. I couldn’t find the name of the cruise but it was about $60 a person and we bought through Viator.

When we planned on spending New Years in Paris we wanted to watch the Eiffel Tower at midnight, but it was so foggy you could barely see past the restaurant. M had heard from some friends that the Champs Elysees is where all the Parisian natives go at midnight, so we headed over. Security was tight but after we got in we found that the streets of the Champs were blocked off with not to many people around. So we snapped away.

Once we got closer to the Arc de Triumph we found a few bars and enjoyed some Irish Coffee, hot chocolates, and beer until 5 minutes before midnight. We headed out to packed streets and found a good place to stand for the countdown.