The second day in Paris, we decided to take a train out to the country and visit Versailles. It was another beautiful day with lots of sunshine.
And as usual, it was crowded. But Versailles has such extensive grounds... it doesn't feel crowded unless you're inside. ("People with extensive grounds are always pleased to meet other people with... extensive grounds.")
Versailles is quite amazing. It was fun to imagine ourselves dressed up, attending some extravagant party.
Or simply taking a casual stroll around the gardens.
The place is so huge, it would take days to visit the entire thing. I think they should have bikes for rent, so you can ride around the grounds. But, we did our best to explore as much as we could on foot.
Versailles has several nice cafes on the grounds, scattered throughout the gardens.
My favorite part is Marie Antoinette's home. The design is so fun. I love the pink and yellow marble, and the black and white checkered floors.
And the rooms are not as gaudy as Versailles itself, but still very beautiful and charming.
Sort of feels like walking into the parlor room of one of Jane Austen's characters. Wouldn't you like to play that pianoforte? :)
I wish the fountains had been turned on. But they are still impressive.
The outside of Versailles is in the process of being restored. The roof is being redone, and the edges and windows are being recovered with gold. This photo shows the contrast.
Last time I was there, the Hall of Mirrors was being restored. This time, it was finished.
With the mirrors, and the chandeliers... it is quite a sight to see.
I don't think I would mind waking up to this view...
LaDuree, one of Paris's best pastry shops, has a small area of the gift shop, so we had to buy some macarons. So delicious.
After we had our fill of Versailles, we took the train back to Paris and set off to find some traditional French cuisine. We ended up at a fancy (read: expensive) restaurant close to the Seine. I had codfish.
And Jonathan had pigeon. Pigeon! Let's just say, it tasted like pigeons smelled.
While we were sitting there eating, a dog came up to our table, sat right down, and didn't move until our meal was finished. The waiters asked if he was our dog. In any case, they told us that he is good company!
Eventually a little girl and her father came to take him back home.
Jonathan and I decided we were not really fans of our traditional French meal. So on our way back to our hotel, we stopped for nutella banana crepes. Cheap, and delicious. :)
Many of you would love to see photos of our new house. You'll have to wait. We finally got new carpet, but there are several other projects to complete before I want to go through the trouble of getting the house all in order for pictures and all that. But I will get to it. Someday. In the meantime, if you want to see it, you'll just have to come visit.
It has been over a month since Jonathan and I left for France. And it has taken about that long for me to upload all of our photos and videos. Sometimes my computer, the internet, and youtube/photobucket don't get along. But I have about 9 extensive posts in the works, and here is post #1 about our first day in France!
Our flight to Paris left at 4:45 pm on Wednesday, May 4. Remember when we were stranded in Boston for 4 extra days because of the blizzards over Christmas? We got $800 vouchers out of it, courtesy (if you can call it that) of Delta, which we put to good use in buying direct flights from Salt Lake City to Paris. Greatest decision we could have made. Eleven hours on a plane isn't so bad when it's not split up with connections and layovers. Except that I still couldn't sleep anyway. Nope, no sleeping on the plane for me. Jonathan is another story.
Waiting around at the airport for our flight to take off.
We got to Paris around 11:30 am on Thursday, May 5. After getting our bags, and me having to wait in a long line to exchange my metro pass that didn't work (I bought it online and had it mailed to us), we headed down to the RER train to get into Paris and hop on the Metro. There's a funny story about that, but I'll get to it later.
Carrying heavy luggage through the metro and the streets of Paris is a lot of work. But it's doable. We finally got to our hotel around 2:00 pm.
I forgot to take a photo of our hotel, but here it is. Via.
We stayed at a charming, family-owned hotel in the Latin Quarter, just a block or two from the Seine. It was the perfect location, the staff was very friendly, and we quite enjoyed our stay.
Each room has a painted mural--this was the one in our room.
After dumping our luggage and freshening up, we needed something to do to keep us awake for another 7 hours. So we decided to go on our own walking tour of Paris. We left our hotel, picked up some lunch, headed to the Seine, and crossed the bridge to Notre Dame to sit in a nearby park and eat.
Notre Dame de Paris, if you didn't already know. It was very close to our hotel.
Lunch in Paris is not complete without a pastry.
And they're delicious pretty much no matter where you buy them.
After we ate, we walked around Notre Dame, but we didn't go inside. Don't worry, we found more interesting things to look at. I think the outside is the most interesting part anyway.
From Notre Dame, we walked along the Seine to the Louvre. Although the Louvre isn't my favorite museum, and I spared Jonathan the agony of actually spending any time inside, the outside is still quite impressive. Jonathan was amazed at how big it is, and couldn't imagine people actually living there.
Taking a break next to the infamous (to the French, anyway--just famous to the rest of us) glass pyramids.
Just beyond the Louvre is a nice long patch of grass with many people lying about in the sun. We decided to join them for a bit.
Okay, here's the funny story that we mentioned in the video. Sometimes on our trip (okay, all the time), I would forget that Jonathan doesn't speak French. For example, when we would eat out at a restaurant, we'd look over the menu for a few minutes and then I would ask Jonathan, "So what do you want?" And he would look at me like I'm crazy until I remembered that he has no idea what he wants, because the menu is in French, and he doesn't read French. That didn't just happen once. It happened pretty much every time we ate out. So every day. Anyway, to get onto the metro, you have to put in your ticket and walk through these gates. The gates open for you to go through, and then quickly close behind you. Each gate had a sign that said something to the effect that if you have luggage, to put the luggage through first, in front of you. I obviously could read the sign and got through just fine. Jonathan... not so lucky. He went through pulling his luggage behind him, and the gates closed right onto his luggage. He was stuck. Those doors are strong. He tried to pull them out, but it wasn't working. People were lined up behind him staring, anxious to get through. He turned bright red as he looked at me for help. Of course, there was nothing I could do at that point. Eventually he yanked his suitcase free. Poor guy, he was so embarrassed, and I realized it was all my fault for not telling him what the sign said. I apologized, and all he said was, "I don't want to look American..." Haha.
Okay, so after that we walked through the Arc de Triomphe du Carrousel (another one of Napoleon's arches) to the Tuileries Garden.
Although Paris is a huge city, it has plenty of parks and gardens, so the city still feels green and full of nature. Another great thing about the park: Amorino gelato.
They make the gelato into a flower--how neat is that?
The Tuileries Jarden leads you straight to the Place de la Concorde.
And just beyond that is the Champs-Elysees.
Me standing at the beginning of the Champs-Elysees, which is in front of me (pretty sure).
The Champs-Elysees is, of course, home to many expensive shops - Louis Vuitton, Chanel, Cartier, etc., and the nicest McDonald's I've ever seen. But we didn't shop; just walked all the way down to the Arc de Triomphe.
Jonathan standing triumphant in front of the Arch of Triumph.
At the base of the Arc de Triomphe is France's Tomb of the Unknown Soldier monument.
After visiting the Arc, we had one major landmark left to visit. Can you guess which one?
Yes, we took the stairs, even though we had just walked all around Paris and hadn't slept for many hours. It wasn't so bad.
Jonathan taking in the view.
A panoramic shot from the second deck of the Eiffel Tower.
A view of Sacre Coeur, which we visited a couple days later.
After we finished our tour and walked back down the stairs, we decided we better walk up the Champs de Mars to get a good photo.
You can really tell in this photo how tired we actually are.
The pictures we took ourselves weren't great, so we asked a nice, young tourist to take our photo. I think he was from Eastern Europe somewhere and didn't speak English or French. But he obliged, and then we returned the favor. Can't go to Paris without a photo in front of the Eiffel Tower, right?
After our lengthy walking tour, all we wanted to do was go back to our hotel and sleep. It was about 8:30 pm, and it was a long walk back, so we found a metro station (which was too far away for our liking) and made the trip back to the hotel. And we slept, quite soundly, even though the bed was hard and the pillow was strange. One long, round pillow... it was weird. And apparently quite common in France.
Check back later for Day 2 of our epic adventure. Next up: Versailles.
