A little break

We've been mostly driving on this trip, luckily (I guess) wheel builds are somewhat spread out. Our hotels are not always that close to the team hotels, and with 2 teams to support heavily we need to be in contact every day. Yesterday we saw both teams then had to drive quite a while to get to our hotel, which happened to be:
A. cheap, hot, and very tiny. Not to mention in a strip mall-like area without any food close by except a bar and a Tabac. Neither were intriguing choices for a decent meal after driving most of the day.
B. On the far outskirts of Paris.
As you can see in the photo, we decided to chuck it all and take the train into Paris for sightseeing and supper. After missing two trains while we tried to word the automatic ticket machine, we found the real live ticket office, got set up, and caught the train. I had a vague recollection of how to work the metro, and how much trouble could we get ourselves into? Contrary to what those of you who know me well are thinking, the answer was not much (trouble).
Once we got to Gare Lyon, we got our "carnet" (a 10 pack of metro tickets) and set off.
First stop, the Louvre. The sun was getting low and it made for a great scene in the big courtyard:
Here is the smaller inner courtyard, since we are on a bike related trip, it was a good thing that there was a man riding by to oblige us:
We walked down the Tullierie to the other end - the Champs Elysee. Le Tour will end here on July 24th with 10 hot laps through town. I could not figure out what they could possibly be building in the center of the Champs, where the big obelisk is. Then I realized... the Super VIP stands for the finish of Le Tour! No bleacher seating here, there are individual chairs.
From there, we forged ahead to the Pont Alexandre, the fanciest bridge I have ever seen (top photo). I made sure to get the Tour Eiffel in the background. We were planning on hopping back on the Metro to see said Tower, but it was 9 o'clock and we had not eaten yet. Following my unerring sense of wrong direction, we crossed the bridge to look for food - in what I think was the diplomatic section. It didn't look familiar, and John thought that the foreign flags hanging out in front of the various building probably meant that these were the embassies.
So I says to John, "lets go up to Notre Dame, I think there are some little cafes on the side streets there". We come up the stairs from the metro, literally turn the corner, and find this:
The Paris food court. that's John taking a picture of it all. Every shop you can see is a restaurant. Little cafes indeed. We got a couple falafel dinners from this guy:
They really hit the spot. His shop had to be 110 degrees, and even though he was wearing pants (a good thing when you are a chef), double breasted chef shirt, and apron, he was not even sweating. he must get a lot of practice at being hot.

By now the sun was starting to set:
So we went back down to the metro for a long, stop at all stations ride back to our tiny hot hotel room.
Not a bad way to spend 5 hours.
Au Bientot!