Walking tour of Paris

Today Nolen [my roommate] called me and asked me if I wanted to join his language school on a walking tour of Paris. I decided that it was probably a good idea since I should really know as much as possible about the city that's my home for the next 5 months. All I really can vouch for is that it's super cold out and makes me NOT want to walk around at ALL ! I met up w the group at 2pm and we headed to the Pont Neuf [New Bridge, which is actually the oldest bridge in Paris] for the beginning of the tour.

 (photo not my own)

We walked through the Louvre courtyards, past the pyramid, around the Arc de Triomphe du Carrousel, and through the Jardin Tulieries. We continued on to the Champs-Elysées were we stopped at a few flagship stores and toured an art exhibit above the Louis Vuitton store [after of course balking at the price of the leather goods on display]. While this all sounds short and sweet, we were zigzagging all over the place, popping in and out of hotels and various buildings, and didnt arrive at our final destination, the Arc de Triomphe, until around 6:30pm.  It was informative, cold and exhausting.  Which made it easy to come home, make dinner and veg out in front of the 8pm news.

Here's a map of our route.  It was 5km, which is about 3.1miles... which should only take about an hour or so to walk... but we managed to draw it out to 4.5, with all the stopping and learning :)