We made it to The Louvre entrance 5 minutes before they opened at 9 am, and with Sahna's incredible last-minute planning, we were one of the first people of the day to see the Mona Lisa! We entered through underground entrance by the upside down Pyramid (known as the Carrousel du Louvre) since it was connected directly to the Musée du Louvre Metro station. This was the perfect entrance for us because the line was really short, and it requires you to already have a ticket or the Paris Museum Pass. The Pass was really handy throughout The Louvre because you need a ticket to enter each wing, but we could just flash the pass and pass right on through.

So as I mentioned before, Sahna's awesome planning got us to see all of the famous pieces without too much of a crowd. We saw the Mona Lisa (Denon Wing, 1st floor, Room 7), Venus de Milo, the Consecration of Napoleon, Madonna of the Rocks, Raft of Medusa, and Liberty Leading the People. We then spent some time just admiring all the paintings and amazing architecture of the building. I personally enjoyed The Louvre's architecture a lot more than the paintings themselves, while Sahna appreciated the paintings more using her 10th grade world history class knowledge from a Mrs. Pilling. 

After seeing the paintings inside the Louvre, we headed back to the Carrousel du Louvre and checked out the Apple Store. Very fancy, and you might have seen our facebook status update from there! We then headed up to the main entrance and marveled at the glass pyramid, which is actually also the main entrance. At this point, we realized that the camera battery was dying, and we still had two venues still left to visit! We decided it would be best to grab a bite and head back to the hostel, charge the battery, and get back to our touring. We ate at a local brasserie, where Sahna tried some delicious confit de canard, a kind of duck preparation. Next, we scrambled back to the hostel and looked up our plan of action while we re-charged the battery (and ourselves).

The rest of the day was spent gawking at the marvelous architecture of the Sainte-Chapelle and Notre Dame de Paris. The most striking features of both of these buildings was their sheer size and the huge but intricate stained glass windows on each one. Sainte-Chapelle was the smaller and more intricate of the two buildings, while Notre Dame was an absolutely incredible feat of engineering and architecture. 

After walking through the Cathedral at Notre Dame (where we witnessed Mass that was still in session), we got in line to climb the 422 stairs to the top of the tower. The climb was even more grueling than the one to the top of Arc de Triomphe, but was incredibly breathtaking up top. We got to see all of Paris from the top, including the Eiffel Tower again. Sahna again had a bit of trouble coming back down the extremely narrow winding stairs, but luckily I didn't drop anything down to further increase her chances of a heart attack.

Once we got back down, we caught our breath in the sprawling courtyard of the cathedral. Our dinner consisted of Nutella crêpes to-go from a roadside vendor. It totally hit the spot and capped off an incredible day. We took full advantage of the Paris Museum Pass for it's savings with admission costs, the ability to skip lines, and streamline the entire entry process.