Well, actually this on day 6 but I finally have a decent enough internet connection to upload and add photos!

Started our day blissfully sleeping in and getting over our jet lag, then headed out to the Picasso Museum - one of the hundreds of smaller museums we never quite got to visit while we lived in Belgium. 

The museum is housed in a building that was once a hotel (left)

After another lovely lunch at a little out of the way sidewalk cafe, we walked, essentially from the Louvre, through the Marais district, and up to the Opera.  Most of the way was quiet and relatively unpopulated, and away from the heavy tourist areas.  Delightful to say the least.

August is vacation month in France, and many shops and restaurants close for weeks, or even the entire month as their proprietors take holiday.  I can't imagine anything like that happening back home!

The highlight of today though was our dinner cruise on the Seine.   Having a lovely dinner while watching Paris slowly roll by is a delight.  Our cruise departed at 9 pm so we were able to enjoy sunset and twilight over the river on our walk to the boat, and, of course, see the Eiffel Tower at night:

Above, the Seine looking towards Notre Dame.  The Orsay is on the right (actually the left bank), and the Louvre is partially visible on the left.

Below, well, you can probably figure that out yourself.  And yes, that is a downsized version of the Statue of Liberty!  Sort of a lousy photo actually - taken through the window of the boat.

One of the things I wanted to do this trip was apply some of my "lessons learned" from a night photography class I took last year.  I bought a wonderful, lightweight tripod for traveling and, of course, had it with me this evening.  My original goal was to get a killer shot of the Champs Elysee, but I was very disappointed with that final result (too tired at that point to really work at it), however, I was able to capture this marvelous shot of the Louvre.

One more day in Paris to go!