Cory and I had an amazing time exploring an old city and falling in love with it! We did and saw so much and took so many pictures, which I've tried to narrow down here, but there are still a lot, so hang in there if you decide to look. Most of them are of things we saw; there aren't too many of the two of us, which you may or may not appreciate ;) Cory took almost all of them, and I think he did a great job! The city has so much history, a subject I never liked learning, but seeing it all made it different. (Google for history lessons, or buy Rick Steve's Paris and learn that way like we did :) )
Here's our 5 day trip in a nutshell, the pictures are in chronological order.
days we had crepes for breakfast: 4
museums visited: 4
chihuahuas, yorkies, jack russels, and various white fluffy dogs: too many to count
people wearing Penn State stuff: 3 (only one actually went there)
number of hermaphrodite dogs seen: 1 (seriously, it had it all)
stairs climbed: ~1500
miles walked: 20 (thats a random guess, but it was a lot!)
bottles of wine drank: 5
number of pictures taken: 1017
K, that's all the random stuff I can count, so here's a brief summary!
Saturday, Day 1:
~meet at our hotel in the morning and get checked in - how romantic is it to say that 'I met my husband in Paris'!
~head directly to the Eiffel Tower - decide on stairs because it's cheaper and the line is way shorter (328 to the first level, 340 to the second level) - hike to first and second levels with weak knees (I guess I'm afraid of heights!) and take lots of pictures - skip going to the top because the line is super long
~take a short nap because we're exhausted from lack of sleep on the train/plane
~take a walk up to the Arc
de Triomphe - even just this walk was amazing, seeing all the old buildings and cool architecture - more steps up the Arc tower (284 more steps) for more amazing views
~walk down the Champs-
Elysees and see all the expensive stores - go in Louis
Vuitton just because - pass the Grand
Palais and the Petite
Palais and the Obelisk - stroll through the
Tuileries Gardens
~pass out in our hotel room
Sunday, Day 2:
~head to the Louvre and see all the big things, Mona Lisa, Venus
de Milo, Winged Victory - in addition to the amazing art, the Louvre was originally a palace, so the building itself was just so beautiful and impressive - this was one of my favorite things of the trip
~head to the
Ile de la Cite to see
Notre Dame - the cathedral was beautiful, there was a mass going on inside which was kind of neat even if you aren't Catholic or religious - the views from the tower were amazing (387 more steps)
~that evening we did the dinner cruise on the Seine River - it was delicious, relaxing, and wonderful to see the city lit up at night - when we got back to where we started, we got our first views of the Eiffel Tower at night - I think she's even prettier then, all lit up, and every hour on the hour, the lights twinkle
Monday, Day 3:
~start at Les
Invalides, which is the Army Museum and
Napoleons tomb - saw the tomb first, those
Frenchies really like their dead leaders ;) - also walked through an armory museum which was pretty neat, and did the World War I and World War II museums
~head back to the
Ile de la Cite to see Saint
Chapelle, the other chapel on the island - we didn't have time the day before to get it in before the dinner cruise - although less impressive from the outside, this one was simply amazing from the inside, with its 15 stained glass windows - the light coming in was breathtaking and the pictures just don't do it justice
~take the metro to see the
Sacre-
Coeur Basilica which was another beautiful church - it sits up on a hill, 200 some more steps up to that, and then even more up the tower for more gorgeous views - this church was beautiful too, but unfortunately we weren't allowed to take pictures in this one
~short walk down the street to see the
Moulin Rouge
Tuesday, Day 4:
~
Orsay museum first - this building used to be a train station and it just wasn't as impressive as the Louvre - but seeing Van
Gogh's, Monet's, and Renoir's impressionist paintings was pretty great!
~then we realized that both the
Orangerie and Picasso museums that we'd planned on seeing this day were closed
~plan B - go see the Opera
Garnier where the story of the Phantom of the Opera took place - beautiful outside, but a dress rehearsal was going on in the theater so we skipped that tour
~plan C - Catacombs tour - creepy but cool - its not a guided tour, so with the time it takes for people to buy their tickets, you kind of end up in these long dark underground tunnels by yourself, adding to the creepiness factor - the piles of bones went on and on and on
~back to the area where we were staying, which was perfect by the way - a 5 min walk to the Eiffel Tower and two min from a metro stop, and also near Rue
Cler, a street that has a market almost every day - this is where we headed to collect fresh bread (
un baguette
si vous plait), smelly cheese, fruit, wine, and chocolate for our romantic picnic dinner at the Eiffel Tower
Wednesday, Day 5:
~
Orangerie Museum - this is where Monet's Water
Lillies is and the museum was worth going to just for this - I had thought his Water
Lillies was just one painting, but it was 8 huge canvases that he designed for this museum and it was just amazing! - this was one of my other favorite things
~relax with an ice cream cone and then a beer in the
Tuileries Gardens
~dinner at a delicious restaurant and then a night walk to see the Arc
de Triomphe and Louvre lit up
The trip was exhausting, Cory and I are used to relaxing vacations and we need a vacation from this one, but it was AMAZING, as if I didn't say that word enough in this post! As much as I loved it there, we want to see so many other places that I doubt we'll go back, so I'm glad we got to see as much as we did! Enjoy the pictures, if you've gotten to this point without falling asleep ;)
Bonsoir!
On Sunday we drove down to the Mediterranean sea with Melissa along as well. It was a long, adventurous drive, but worth it just to stick our toes in the sea and take in the views in the little town of 
The work week was great too. Here is a shot of the Trajectory Team members from NASA, and the Russian and European space agencies.
And here is a shot of the NASA people who went on the trip, out to dinner at a lovely restaurant in Toulouse.
It was a great trip!
