France 2025 - Day 7

 This was our first full day in Paris. We had a nice breakfast in the hotel and headed off for Les Invalides, Napoleon's tomb and the French Army Museum. We took the metro again. It really is a great system, easy to use and fast.

We arrived at the opposite side from the tomb. Through those doors we bought our tickets to the museum then headed over to see the Great Man's final resting place.

It was very hot today, over 80 degrees. The crowds were not too big. I think we managed to squeak into this trip at the perfect time. We left Normandy right before the crowds started showing up for the June 6th Anniversary and we didn't see huge amounts of tourists in Paris, though there were a lot.

Napoleon's sarcophagus. His ashes are in there, inside four other caskets.

The stairs leading down to view it at ground level, though that's a level down from the actual ground outside. You know what I mean.

It's actually kind of underwhelming, to be honest.

The building itself is really quite magnificent. There's a cathedral attached between the tomb and the museum; they had services going on so we couldn't get in there.

There are also tombs of other great French generals. From Napoleon's family, to some of his Marshalls to WW I generals.

A brother.

Vauban. Perhaps the greatest military engineer of all time.

Marshal Turenne. France's greatest general of the 1600s.

Marshal Foch of WW I.

Following the tomb we went out and grabbed something to drink. They are renovating their cafe so they just had a drink/sandwich cart. After a little refreshment we went and toured the museum. It covers hundreds of years of French military history, from medieval to WW II.

A Gendarme. France's feared heavy cavalry of the renaissance.

A volley gun. This is a medieval machine gun.

This poster is in their WW I collection.

The Chauchat light machinegun from WW I. It was a steaming pile of crap. The Marines were ordered to give up their Lewis guns for this but kept as many of their own MGs as they could and replaced this as quickly as possible. 

French kit from WW II.

All told, with travel time, the museum took us about six hours before we got back to the hotel. Dad and I laid down for a nap and Owyn did whatever those kids these days do on their phones.

Once we were rested we went and sat on the patio and had dinner and drinks and watched the world go by. 

After dinner we returned to our hotel and, again, took some Calvados up to the hotel patio to relax. We had to finish both bottles before we left since we couldn't take them with us.