Friday June 15th

Louis XIV's Military School

Friday morning began with a simple breakfast at our hotel. I’ve said it once and I’ll say it again, these Europeans have no idea what comprises a real breakfast. After eating my toast and jelly, I met up with the group to begin our busy day. We walked from our hotel to the Eiffel Tower to meet up with our bike tour guide. Even though we weren’t able to go up in the Tower, it was fun to see such a famous structure as we made our way to our leader. Supposedly we will be able to go the top at some point during our trip, so I wasn’t too upset that we casually walked past it on Friday. As some may remember, our bike tour was rained out in Prague so we rescheduled a bike tour for Paris instead. After meeting up with our guide under the Eiffel Tower, we made the short walk to Fat Tire Bike Tours to grab our bikes and hit the road.

Louis XIV's Church

As usual, we saw a ton of Paris as we pedaled around the city on our bike tour. We began the tour by checking out a few buildings built under Louis XIV’s reign such as a military school and a magnificent golden-roofed church. While we saw too many buildings both for me to remember and list here, we saw such landmarks as the Ponte Alexandre Bridge, the Louvre, and the Arc du Triumph. Looking back on the tour, I’m very impressed that a city as large as Paris has so much landscaping in the heart of the city. It seemed everywhere we turned there were large trees or well-kept gardens. Overall, the bike tour was an awesome way to see the city and have fun while doing it. 

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After the bike tour, we made our way to Centre Georges Pompidou, France’s preeminent modern art museum. While I have had a tough time appreciating some of the art so far on this trip, I went into the gallery with an open mind. My open-mindedness had to have been lost after about ten minutes in the gallery. It legitimately baffles me how people appreciate “modern” art. While I realize that beauty is in the eye of the beholder, some of the pieces in to Centre Georges Pompidou legitimately made me question the sanity of the artist behind their creation. Having said that, it was somewhat interesting to see the radical works in the gallery and wonder what drove the artists to create them. 

Following our trip to Centre Georges Pompidou, the group was released for the day. A couple of guys and I grabbed a quick dinner and headed back to the hotel to watch the night’s Euro 2012 soccer game. Even though I have never been a big soccer fan, it has been fun to watch while in Europe amongst some of the most diehard fans of any sport in the world. After watching France whip up on the Ukraine 2-0, I called it a night to rest up for a busy Saturday.