Paris Day 3

• We woke up this morning with the Paris Marathon running outside our hotel. We ate our breakfast in bed and watched them run by glad that someone was being fit while we have been stuffing ourselves the last few days.
• Since it was Palm Sunday, we decided to take in the churches today. We started at Notre Dame ... unfortunately I've run out of adjectives, so the only way I can describe it is awesome. I am astounded at the sheer size and complexity of building something like that so long ago. Notre Dame was built between 1163 and 1200. Not only is it an engineering marvel, it's a complete work of art. The detail in every corner was overwhelming. The experience was made even more interesting because a church service was going on during our tour. It was all in Latin and/or French as best we could tell. But it was neat to see it still in use and made the whole experience all the more special. By the way, despite comments about me from the wife, there were no hunchback sightings.
• Next we went to an area of Paris called  Montmartre. We had heard good things about this part of Paris but we were not too impressed. Moulin Rouge is here (although we did not see it) and so is Sacre Coeur the big white church on a hill (we did see this). Sacre Coeur is a beautiful church and architecturally it's very different (and more modern) than Notre Dame. However, the atmosphere around the church left much to be desired. There were all street performers and gypsies loitering around outside Sacre Coeur. No big deal but it was kind of distracting and as we left we ran into an overly zealous gypsy trying to peddle his wears a little too aggressively for our taste. Anyway the church is beautiful and the view of the city is cool, but we didn't hang out much here.
• After dinner tonight we walked over to the Eiffel Tower. I must say it was more beautiful lit up at night than it was during the day. Ai got a big cotton candy and was very happy.