unscheduled day in Paris

Friday morning and afternoon was an unsheduled day and my mom, daughter and I decided we had gained enough experience using the subway system that we could navigate Paris on our own without following the large group about. I also confused this day with our day at Chenonceau and Chambord as we actually did this day before that one. Oh well. We still had fun.
So, the first thing we did was walk/subway to the Eiffel tower. It opened at 9:00AM and we got there about 9:30 which was great timing. The lines were just forming so we only had about a 15 minute wait. We elected to go to just the second level. Tickets for the very top were a bit steep and Casey and I are both wusses when it comes to heights. And the second level was perfect. We had a great view of Paris from there. After the Eiffel tower we headed for the Musée D'Orsay and the Musée D'Orange. Both were incredible. Musée D'Orsay housed impressionism and post-impressionism so we saw work by Seurat, Monet, Renoir, Degas and others. As it was lunch time, we found a cafe on the top floor that had great food. We then went outside on the terrace that was on the 6th floor and had another great view of Paris. The Musée D'Orange houses Monet's large waterlily paintings.

After this, we decided to visit the Petit Palais which had no admission charge. Wow! I fell in love with the architecture and courtyard. It housed as much artwork as some of the art museums we'd paid good money for.

By this time we were exhausted so we decided to head back to the hotel before having to meet our group for dinner. But, by the time we missed out bus stop and backtracked, we really didn't have time to rest as we'd hoped. We had a wonderful dinner at the Hard Rock Cafe, so my daughter was very happy.