Ok, before I go into the rest of our week at Paris, I wanted to post some pics of our 3-course meal because we had never had one before! The food was all SOO yummy! Look at it!
This was our salad course. We had potatoes, cucumbers, tomatoes, and various meats over the salad. Yummy!
The main course was really yummy too! We had a hash brown, which was pretty random, if you ask me. We also had chicken in this awesome sauce, with a side of vegetables.
My favorite course. . . dessert and cheese! We had 2 kinds of pieces and 2 kinds of cheese along with some AWESOME rice pudding! I'm salivating just thinking about it! :)
On Thursday, we went to the Palace of Versailles, which is about 30 minutes outside of Paris. The palace is, of course, beautiful! This is where the famous Louis XIV lived at the height of the French empire. Everything was coated in gold and the rooms were just spectacular! This is also where Louis' grandson, Louis XVI lived along with his infamous wife, Marie Antoinette. It was a pretty interesting place surrounded by lots of history!
This is the Hall of Mirrors. The room was just filled with gorgeous mirrors and chandeliers. This is also the room where they signed the end of World War I. As I was walking around the palace I was thinking, "If I was a French peasant eating rats off the street because my rulers squandered all of my money, I would revolt too!" Eating rats of the street, what a disgusting thought!
The gardens outside the Palace of Versailles were just as impressive as the palace itself! But by this point we were all pretty tired. We took a few pics and walked around like a tenth of the gardens before we decided to head back to Paris. The fountain behind us was BEAUTIFUL, but covered in naked people so I couldn't post a more detailed pic! :)
After the Palace of Versailles, we went to the Orangerie to see Monet's greatest masterpieces. . . his water lily series. It's pretty awesome because the whole museum is in the shape of an oval, so the pics are conformed to the oval walls. It really feels like you're surrounded by water lilies. I LOVED it! :)
Later on Thursday evening, we went to St. Louis Isle , which is a part of Paris. It has the cutest shops there, and some not so cute shops. We did see a dead chicken with its head still attached. Talk about gross! Then we saw some cute gadget stores along with lots of bakeries (yum!).
A gorgeous view of the Notre Dame cathedral. I just love the clouds in this pic. Surrounding the River Siene, there are TONS of book sellers. You can find some really old and out of print books there. . . none of them tempted me because . . . I can't read French! :)! It was still fun to look!
This is one of my favorite pics from our trip! Way to go camera man Sam! This was taken from the Place de Concorde.
A pic of a fountain at the Place de Concorde. Just to the left of this pic, there was the best place that sold crepes and waffles. Sam had never had a crepe before, but once he did he was hooked! :). The chocolate crepes were SOOOO delicious! Part of that was because of the yummy Nutella that the French put on almost everything! We fell in love with the Nutella. In fact, as soon as we returned home to the US, the first thing we did was buy some Nutella at the grocery store. Yum!
We began our Friday by going to the Luxembourg gardens, which were of course beautiful. Then we wandered over to the Latin Quarter to see the Pantheon. I guess that no one really knows what to call the Pantheon. It was once a church, but now it's a cemetery for Joan of Arc (how they know that I'll never know!), Victor Hugo, and lots of other people. 
But the reason why we went was to hike up to the top of the dome and experience the view. Boy was it a view! It was pretty odd walking on the dome, but it was worth it.
Next, we went over to the Montmartre area for a guided walking tour. Unfortunately our tour began at the base of the hill, just outside the Moulin Rouge. I have never wanted to leave a place so badly in my life. There were all these people posing in front of the Moulin Rouge and I was too scared to even sit on a bench in fear of getting an STD. That area was SOOO dirty!
Once we had walked 2 blocks away, I felt MUCH better! We saw some really cool sites on our tour. Our first stop was at the cemetery. It was the coolest cemetery because it seriously reminded me of the Haunted Mansion at Disneyland. Look at that pic and tell me it doesn't look the same. In fact, the whole time we were at the cemetery I kept singing the Haunted Mansion song to Sam!! Hahaha!
Montmartre is famous for its artists from the turn of the century (Van Gogh, Degas, and several other well known artists). But my favorite part was just all the ADORABLE neighborhoods, complete with cobblestone roads and beautiful flowers!!
Sam and I in Montmartre.
Montmartre is also famous for all of the painters who just hang out in the streets painting lots of pictures. Sam and I bought a few small paintings there and my parents bought a BEAUTIFUL painting (which was a pain to haul home! :)). At the top of the Montmartre lies the Sacre Coeur cathedral. It is built out of travertine which gets whiter with age, and it's pretty white. The inside wasn't as pretty as the outside, but the view outside of the cathedral was just astounding. It was quite the cake topper for the ending of our trip!
On Saturday we woke up early (3AM) only to have our prepaid shuttle not arrive (they told us the night before that they would show up at 4AM). Luckily, we were able to get a taxi there, but we almost missed our 7:30AM flight, thanks. In fact, we had just gotten through security when our flight started to board. We had a pretty miserable flight. It was bumpy, we had a 5-hour layover in London, plus an 11 hour flight and it just wasn't enjoyable. By the time that we got home, we had been up for 26 hours! We were pretty happy to see our bed! :)
All in all, we had a great trip. The people were generally friendly, the food was great, and the sights were beautiful. I wouldn't mind going back. In fact, my Dad was talking about going back to Strasbourg, which is where he served his mission and it's right on the German border. Now that would be a fun trip! I think I've had enough flying for now. We'll see where we go next!
1 comments:
Marcie, you've got to stop posting pictures of Paris! Now I really, really want to go! Just kidding, this may be a close as I get to Paris. :) It looks like you guys had a great time!
Post a Comment