09/15/2017
Paris was everything I expected it to be and more. I have so many pictures so I decided to group them by days and what we did.
On our first day we arrived late in the afternoon and we were pretty tired but we rallied and decided we had to explore a bit. In one of our Paris books, it mentioned to take a walk along the seine and stop at various points, so we decided to do that but make our own stops.
Our first stop was at the Palais royal to see the Les Deux Plateaux, which are the stripped black and white columns. It really is just another excuse to take pictures and a place for kids to run around. Our next stop was The Louvre. I was pretty surprised how excited I was to see the pyramid. It’s pretty surreal to see it for the first time. After this we walk across the bridge and walked along the Seine. Chase and I love Midnight in Paris, so we were pretending to be Gil and Adriana while walking along. I love how people hang out there, have picnics, and play games. If I lived in Paris I would definitely find a nice spot and read, it’s so relaxing and you have a beautiful view. After awhile we were getting tired and we made it to the Notre Dame… all I can say is WOW!! From far away it looks like any other pretty church, but once you get close up and see the detail.. It’s beautiful!!! We also got there when the bells were going off which was really beautiful to hear. The church was already closed so we couldn’t go inside. We looked at our map and realized that the Shakespeare and company bookstore was across the street and that was one thing we marked that we had to see. If you’re a book lover, I recommend going into it.. Even if you’re not you should go into it. I’ve never been to a bookstore like this before. All the books on the first floor you can purchase. On the second story they have a reading nook with notes from people, some of them were quotes, love letters, poems, and short stories that they wrote in the store. I could’ve sat there and read them for hours. In another room they had a pianist playing and more chairs for people to enjoy the music and read, there also was a cat hanging out on one of the chairs, it was so cute!! In the last room they had a writing seminar and it was cool to overhear people share their opinions on each other’s work.. I also felt kind of weird listening in so I was pretending to read a book lol.
On our second day we went to the Musee d’ Orsay and the Eiffel Tower. This was one of my favorite days partly because I was in impressionism heaven. I have seen a couple Van Gogh’s and Monet’s at the Getty but nothing like this.. They have rooms and rooms of Cezanne, Van Gogh, Monet, Degas, Sisley, and Renoir. If you only have time for one museum while you’re in Paris I recommend going here.
Seeing the Eiffel Tower for the first time was unreal!! When you go to Paris you have to see it and go up at least once. Everyone told me that you may not want to actually go up but they either regretted it or once they did it, they wish they did the first time. It is annoying to wait in the long lines but I bought a ticket online that lets you bypass the ticket line and you get a Seine cruise ticket as well. It was about $40/person and it was worth it. We had a guide that gave us history on the tower as we were waiting for the elevator and once we got to the second floor we went off on our own. You can buy a ticket to go up to the third floor but I didn’t feel it was necessary.
The views from the second floor are beautiful and I hear it’s even more beautiful at night.
Instead of waiting in line to take the elevator back down, we decided to take the stairs, it took us less than 10 minutes to get down.. It really wasn’t bad at all and was worth not having to wait in a 20-30 minutes line.
We came back on our last night to see the Tower at night and waited to watch it sparkle which was absolutely magical and is something that everyone should do. It sparkles every night from dusk to 2 pm on the hour for 5 minutes and it goes by really fast. It’s great to get pictures but take a couple and then sit and enjoy the view.
xxx
