After visiting the Loire Valley our bus took us to our next long awaited destination.  On the way there we stopped at the famous city nearby Versailles.  Versailles hosts the magnificent Palais du Versailles (Palace of Versailles), the former palace of the French king and now art museum.  The palace has several areas constructed from gold such as the gate and the clock on the facade of the palace.  We saw many wonderful pieces of art and walked through the beautiful gardens at the back of the museum.  We spent a few hours wandering around the property admiring what we saw before we went to the city of lights.  Driving into Paris later in the day was a wonderful feeling as we drove on a bridge over the river Seine.  We checked into our hotel, walked to a restaurant, and rode the metro to Les Champs-Elysees.  On the metro a man came on and started playing the accordion just as we were riding by the Eiffel Tower creating a fun and beautiful scene.  The Champs-Elysees is a large street famous for its stores but we were quite disappointed to find out that they brought us there when most of them had closed.  It was not terrible though as we walked over to L'Arc de Triomphe which has the french equivalent of the tomb of the unknown soldier.  The soldier was a veteran of World War I and the tomb has an eternal flame to honor all of those who fought to preserve the liberty of France.  The tomb has the inscription- Ici repose un soldat francais mort pour la patrie- which I can translate to "Here lies a french solider who died for the fatherland".   As I was in bed, I thought about how this man gave the greatest sacrifice for his country and wondered if I could do the same.  The next day we visited Le Louvre, another former palace turned art museum.  In the museum I saw many impressive exhibits, I even got to see the original Mona Lisa which is much smaller than I thought.  We also went to the famous Cathedral Notre Dame, which for a Catholic like myself, was pretty incredible.  Later in the day we traveled to the structure everyone was waiting for, the Eiffel Tower.  We had to wait in many lines as we went higher and higher on the tower.  After a long wait we reached the top and gazed upon Paris.