Day 20: Parisian Masterpieces
Daily Briefing
Wow, it's day 20 already. It seems like a long time yet it seems like no time at all. We want to go home but we really want to stay. We're tired but we're exhilarated.
All that doesn't matter. It's our last day, tomorrow we fly home. We got up early to take the Metro to the Louvre. We gathered under the Inverse Pyramid where we met our guide, Ute. Our first stop was actually under the Louvre where we saw the foundation of the Louvre Palace which was the ancient castle (1100 AD) upon which the modern Louvre was built. As we continued, we saw room after room of ancient Greek and Roman statues and other priceless works of art which were beautifully preserved. We continued through rooms filled with Renaissance art and finally into sections of Napoleonic French art. It seemed like you could spend a month there and not see everything. We stopped in a tourist filled room to view the Mona Lisa. The tour ended by noon and we were allowed to browse through the Louvre on our own. We went to the Middle East exhibit where we saw Hammurabi's code and other ancient works. Our afternoon was free and we walked along the Seine and enjoyed the streets of Paris until we came to the Orsay where we spent the rest of the afternoon. I was a little disappointed that photos of the art were not allowed but I enjoyed the photos I took of the building. Following the Orsay, we walked back to our hotel through the streets of Paris and really hoped we wouldn't get lost. After our group dinner, the entire group walked to the Eiffel Tower. There, under a magnificent sky, we said our farewells and each described our best moments of the past 21 days. Our's was the Ehrenberg castle trip which will always be our favorite. |
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A Few Words About: Flying Cheap
A major cost of any trip to Europe is airfare. We've flown to Europe three times and have yet to pay full price for an airline ticket. We do this by using a popular American Airline credit card through Citi Bank. The Citi Bank card allows you to accumulate one airline mile for each dollar purchased through the card. We always try to purchase as much as possible using the card and pay off the balance monthly to avoid interest, penalties and fees. Once you have accumulated enough miles to fly to Europe you must do a great deal of planning to minimize the fees American and affiliate carriers charge on top of the "free ticket". These fees can easily amount to as much as $1,000 making your free ticket very expensive. We've found that fees go up when you transfer to an affiliate carrier to get to your final destination so we try to book the entire flight on American. At times these fees increase for no apparent reason so it's important to check these frequently. Flying in season will cost as much as four times the air miles as in the off season. For example, we used 20,000 air miles to fly from Grand Rapids, Michigan to Amsterdam on May 1 but the same connection after May 15 cost 60,000 miles. We chose an early May "Best of Europe" tour for this reason. With American, you don't pay a penalty for leaving from a different airport than your arrival airport, hence, we flew in to Amsterdam and out of Paris using frequent flyer miles. Most importantly, book your flight early as the cost (both in miles and fees) goes up and frequent flyer seats quickly disappear. We booked our flights in August 2013 for May 2014 tour. If you're not using frequent flyer miles, we've found the Google ITA Software site to be extremely beneficial in finding low cost domestic and international flights. One final note, we avoided luggage fees by carrying on all of our belongings. This also avoids problems with lost or late luggage and makes flying a little less complicated. We always have friends or family drop us at the airport to avoid parking fees. We also bring an empty water bottle through TSA checkpoints and fill it up later. I don't know about you but I hate to pay $4 for water.
With all that said, it's an incredible feeling to be taking off knowing that you've got the "Best of Europe" ahead of you.
With all that said, it's an incredible feeling to be taking off knowing that you've got the "Best of Europe" ahead of you.