Day Four in Paris: The Eiffel Tower and the Louvre

So friday was our last full day in Paris. We knew that with travel and how crazy things were going to be that we wouldn't get the chance to really go anywhere before our flight left on saturday(in hindsight this was great since we had issues with luggage...stupid air france). 

So since we had been too tired the day before, we decided to start our morning off by going to the Eiffel Tower! It's a must see in Paris and we wanted to get the full view during the day. 

So we went early and I'm glad we did because it was still packed and crowded. But we eventually got through and got our tickets (score for getting a student discount with our int'l student id cards) and went up. So....they take everyone to the second level since the first is under construction right now and then you can go up higher to the top if you have a ticket for it. 

So we get to the second/main level and I start to freak out. I had TOTALLY forgotten how bad my fear of heights has become and going up in a clear elevator while you can see how far you are up through the slats in the tower....not so good. 

So here are a few pics from the first landing:

We eventually walked  most of this to get to the metro station.... yay for metro stops not being marked on maps as under construction!

Then when I was calm enough we went up in the little elevator to the top. Not....pleasant. But it was really funny because so far on this trip I had used a system to ask people to take our pictures. What I would do was see if someone had a nice camera like mine and if they did then I'd offer to take their picture and ask them to take mine. It was funny because this American girl did the exact same thing and was like, oh! You have a nice camera! Can you take our picture? It was rather funny and Drew and I got a picture on top of the Eiffel Tower. 

The view was nice even if I was not happy with it. 

So we came down and walked a bit on the lawn before treating ourselves to Gelato and continuing to meander around the park. Our only other stop that day was the Louvre and while we were excited for it, we were in no rush since we just wanted to enjoy our time. 

But then we made it! The Louvre was awesome! It was also incredibly packed and confusing. 

While Drew and I both knew that we could have spent ages more in the Louvre, we had gone through our guidebook the night before to look at the exhibits and pick out our list of absolute must-sees and then ones we'd like to see if we had the time. 

Even so, our list was quite long and included:

 the Winged Victory of Samothrace 

The Mona Lisa

David's The Intervention of the Sabine Women

The Burial of Atala

The Code of Hammurabi

Lamassus from Persepolis

Venus de Milo

Michaelangelo's The Slave

Psyche Revived by Cupid's Kiss

It took us the entire day to go through all of those and those are just a TINY fraction of the photos that I got from the Louvre. We didn't even see an entire 2 floors and the other 3 we only saw parts of them. Midway through we decided that we were famished and decided to eat at the museum cafe. Man..it was delicious. :) 

Mine: Beef Stir Fry, French Fries(in France ha!) and A Salad

Drew's: Salad, Pasta salad, veggie mix with pork stew thingy (his last taste of pork for 4 months)

I promise we didn't actually eat the entire time, we just made sure to enjoy the food since everyone told us how amazing it was. So after we left the Louvre, it started to rain. At first it was just off and on, but then it started to really come down. Guess who didn't have an umbrella? Yeah... that was fun. And then once again, a lot of the metro stops around the Louvre were under construction.... so we had to walk all the way back to Notre Dame to get to a metro station. It's not that far if it's dry, but since it was raining it was a bit miserable. 

Needless to say that by the time we got off at our metro station we were ready to get back. However, one thing that we wanted to do was grab a bunch of fruits, cheese and pastries and have dinner/breakfast the next day. So we went to a little fruit stand that we had passed almost every day (it sold fruit and beans...super cute) and picked out some things that looked good and then we went to a fromagerie where Drew had been before to grab some brie. I hadn't been and I was so glad that I went!

It was owned by this little old french couple who did not know a lick of English but she recognized Drew (he stands out pretty much wherever we go...maybe we should visit Norway or Sweden and see how he does there) and was glad that he brought me. We showed her that we had bread and fruits (we had just passed by the patisserie and got some things as well) and for each fruit she gave us a cheese to eat with it. She was also really kind and added in a free thing of flan since we had come back and visited!

I snuck a picture of her as she was ringing up our order. She was so tiny and cute! So we got back to the hotel and laid out our goodies. It was quite the feast and it looked even more impressive with our souvenirs that we had bought in Paris. 

It was by far our best dinner in Paris. It was so much fun to mix and match the different cheeses with the different fruit. We were definitely sweeted and cheesed out by the end of it, but it was worth it! Overall our trip to Paris had been eventful but laid back and absolutely amazing. Drew and I can't wait to go back there! 

Day Three in Paris: Sainte Chappelle, Notre Dame, Sacre Coeur and Arc du Triomphe

Since Versailles was such a long day, Drew and I took a bit of a break the next day. A break as in we slept in later. :D We didn't get up until about noon and decided to go eat at a local cafe near our metro station. 

It seemed reasonable and we were hungry so we decided to eat and see what French foods we could have. 

My lovely smiling hubby. So it was neat to order since they had the traditional french style of ordering where you have a list of things on a chalkboard and then you pick what you want based on a price range. In addition to getting those meals, we decided on getting escargot as an appetizer. 

It was super yummy. And for Drew's appetizer he got pate. Which...was kinda gross but Drew didn't mind. I had "assorted vegetables" which consisted of a salad with an interesting dressing and a ton of corn on top of it. It was good but a little bizarre. So it was funny when we ordered because we were trying to get different things for the main course so that we could sample each others, but it ended up that we both ordered the Bolognese...which I only realized once I got it was spaghetti. In my defense, 2 of the 5 main courses had pork in them and so those were immediately out for me. It was really good though! And it was crazy, it wasn't an expensive meal, but we couldn't finish it all because it was so much. It was Delicious though. 

After leaving lunch (at about 3.... you can't rush Parisians....) we headed over to Ilé de Cité for Sainte Chappelle and Notre Dame. 

Even after stuffing ourselves and walking a bit after lunch, we realized that we couldn't bring our treats with us into either location. So once we got outside of Sainte Chappelle, we ate our treats from the bakery that day. 

We got a few funny looks but it was so yummy! We shared the chocolate eclair (amazing) and Drew had the green one (like a custard filled donut?) and I had the chocolate mousse thing that was to die for. 

It was kinda funny to be eating those right outside the Church and the Justice building (they're on the same complex for some reason). 

We're both super glad that we went to Sainte Chappelle first. It looked really crowded at Notre Dame and there was hardly anyone there when we went into the church. It was so beautiful inside. 

View of the front

The beautiful stained glass windows!

And then of course we meandered over to Notre Dame. :D

Pretty much gorgeous 

Hi mom and dad!

So after going in Notre Dame and seeing around, we went to get in the line to get to the top of the bell towers. While we were waiting in line, a guard comes up and puts a pole down 3 people in front of us saying that it was the end of the line and that they weren't going to take any more for today. So that was SUPER frustrating...so Drew and I got over our frustration by going and getting Gelato. It was good but probably not as good as the view would have been. 

So after doing some shopping and eating the gelato, Drew and I headed over to Sacré Coeur. Oh man, if you ever go to Paris, GO THERE. We lucked out that by the time we got up there we were there around sunset. It was absolutely beautiful! Even if it was an INCREDIBLY long walk up 500 steps one way... A bit tiring after biking in Versailles the day before. It made me feel better that even Drew was super sore and tired after going up to the top. But it was so worth it. I mean, look:

It was simply amazing. I'm glad we went. But we weren't quite done. We actually felt awake/slightly over jet-lag and we knew that the Arc du Triomphe and the Eiffel Tower were open late. However, by the time we made it back to either of them, it was rather dark. That didn't stop us from seeing the Arc though!

It was really pretty lit up at night. 

View from on top of the Arc

Woo! Eiffel Tower all lit up at night!

And this awesome picture of the two of us in front of the Arc. We weren't in danger of getting hit by the cars since there was actually a break in the traffic and the area was blocked off a good 10 feet behind us too. But it's a really cool shot. 

However, after going up the Arc we were spent. We had done a lot of walking/hiking/climbing/biking in the past two days and our poor leggies were done. So we went to bed and planned on an early day the next day. This day was super packed, but so much fun!

Day two in Paris: Versailles

So after crashing the day before, we got up bright and early to be at Versailles right when it opened. It was a nice train ride down and we got to ride a tram on the way to the train station. That was pretty neat. So we arrived and got to wait outside since we were there super early. We had our Paris Museum passes however on the website it says that during the high season (July and August) they won't honor the passes if they've reached capacity so they suggest getting there early. We spent the ENTIRE day there and even then we could have easily done another day if we had gone a bit slower. 

The view while we were waiting. 

I made sure to please the parents (Hi Moms & Dads!) with pictures of their babies

Although actually going in was pretty awesome. They actually had free audio guides so we decided to get them which was probably a good thing given how PACKED it was and the tour groups that were there were super rushed. Oh and we got there on a wednesday.... 

So the Chateau is GORGEOUS. And huge. And very ostentatious. It was funny because by the end of it I told Drew I could never live in a place like that, it just hurts the eyes. That and you realize that the amount of money that was spent on it could feed a few countries for a while...

Nonetheless, we really enjoyed it! Above is a picture of the chapel where one of the Kings had it made to show how pious he was. 

The famous hall of mirrors. It was super long but pretty! P.s. For some reason they decided to have a lot of random modern art strewn throughout the Chateau... and I'm normally ok and pretty open with most modern art but this stuff was just ridiculous especially when in stark contrast to what was next to it. 

Drew got a bit annoyed with me for taking so many pictures at first, but then a few days later when I got around to loading them onto the computer he was really grateful that I had taken pictures. HA! Vindicated. 

View of the gardens off to one side. 

So the day that we went to Versailles was Drew and my 22 month anniversary. I know, we're cheesy and we still count the months that we've been married. But we decided that since our two year anniversary was going to be in Amman, that we might be able to do something nice while in Paris. So we ate lunch at the restaurant in the Chateau. The restaurant was called Le Angelique and it was an experience. Their food options were very snooty and so I got salmon (which made me laugh since that's a North American fish mainly....) with Asparagus and some weird sauce (blech) and Drew got some beef thing with green beans. It wasn't super spectacular however, our desserts were. I mean, just look at the display case!

It was so much fun ordering dessert because Drew and I wanted it all. We hadn't had dessert at the Musee de Orsay and especially since it was our "anniversary" we decided to splurge. So I got the Choc Africain and Drew got the Choc Mont Blac. 

This was mine:

And this was Drew's: 

At first we were going to share but after trading bites, we both decided that we liked our own better. Which was fine with me since it was absolutely HEAVENLY. I would have paid what we paid for the meal just for that dessert... it was that good. It was SO yummy. It was a chocolate cake with a thick chocolate mousse, covered in chocolate ganache and topped with a little bit of leafing of edible gold. 

My goal in life is to figure out how to make that Again. 

But back to Versailles. After lunch we went outside and started exploring around there. 

This was the view of the grand canal. It was so awesome!

Of course we had to take pictures in front of the famous fountain:

This is looking back at the Chateau from the beginning of the grand canal. 

So after walking around a bit, we decided to rent some bicycles since the locations for the Grand and Little Tranions and Marie Antoinette's play village were a bit far away. As it was, it was a good 10-15 minute bike ride to the first place. It was so nice to go along the canal and have the wind whipping by as we biked. It was super fun. 

The Tranions were ok, but kinda meh. And we were starting to get a bit worn out. But Drew really wanted to bike to Marie Antoinette's play village so we made sure to do that. It was nice, but we were there for like 10 minutes and then biked back to the beginning of the grand canal and hiked back up to the Chateau. 

Drew at the play village 

We had such an amazing time and it was super neat to get to see Versailles from opening until (almost) closing. 

Another thing we did before we headed back was eat dinner. Our lunch, although expensive, was rather small and as such we were hungry after our day of biking and walking. So we decided to go to an American institution: McDonalds. I actually enjoy going to McDonalds ONCE while in a foreign country just because it's neat to see what the differences are in what they serve. In India, for example, had no beef on their menu and they had a paneer sandwich and a maharajah mac (instead of a big mac). In France it seemed that the beef and cheese was a little bit nicer than in the US. But we also had to get something unique, so we got a chevré wrap. It was actually pretty yummy. 

We were a bit tired after such a day and definitely had another early night. Curses on jetlag! At least we were getting over it in Paris and not in Amman.