Thursday, May 8 was a bank holiday in France. It's funny how there always seems to be an unexpected bank holiday when traveling in Europe.
Back in 1962 when I was first in Paris, Bim fretted about not being able to change her dollars into francs because of the unexpected bank holiday.
This time I was smug until I discovered that French ATM machines only accept six digit PIN numbers and my PIN number has 8 digits. Yikes! Luckily, Peg's ATM card worked. Whew!

By this time we had seen the Louvre, the d'Orsay, and the Pompidou so we were ready for a little fun. We walked from our hotel to the Rodin Museum past the Invalides, a veterans hospital built by Napoleon. When he died, he was buried there.
Our hotel was right by the Metro station for the Ecole Militaire, the West Point of France. It was a great location because we were able to take interesting bus rides in the evening all over Paris. The Metro, of course, was the fastest way to get to any destination and our Cartes Orange were great!