2nd Night in Paris

After our busy day in Versailles, we decided to unwind with a sunset cruise down the Seine River.  We purchased a Museum Pass-best bet for your money.  You skip the lines at all major museums and we got a lot of extras included-Seine River Cruise was one of those!  My night pics on the cruise did not turn out that great, but the lights of the city reflecting of the river were gorgeous! The song "La Vie en Rose" played a few times while we cruised-couldn't have been anymore French if we tried ;-)  We strolled through the Eiffel Tower area heading to our boat.  The dock was right behind the tower-I really always pictured a park all around the tower-but right behind it is a very busy intersection and a bridge leading down to the river.  But at sunset, the Eiffel Tower looks awesome-right before it lights up for the night, it looks like this......

I have to say, I never got tired of looking at this awesome site!  From time to time I would look up and see the Eiffel Tower and I still couldn't believe I was in Paris!!

The cruise boat was packed....

But once we got started, we were able to get up and walk around, much easier to see everything.  We were hoping for cooler weather, but the breeze was nice.  It was very neat to cruise under the many bridges along the Seine.  Each bridge had a story-wish I could remember them all-but I'm sure I could Google it;-)  Here are a few......

I really need to invest in a better camera for night shots-the bridges were so pretty! 

After our cruise, we headed to a cafe On the Champ Du Mars.  It was a busy corner cafe with a great view of the Eiffel Tower......

I decided to be a little adventurous at dinner.  Karen ordered some Escargot-yep-snails!  I'm not that big of an adventure eater, but I decided to give one a try.  I was a little disappointed-Karen said they should taste like garlic and butter-this one tasted like grass!!!  But hey-at least I tried one!!

But the best was yet to come.....

My Croque Madame!!!  Best sandwich ever!!!  Karen and I split a plate of fries-awesome dinner!!  Thank goodness for all the walking!!  After dinner, we walked around and checked out the many souvenir shops on our way back to our hotel.  We must have worked up an appetite, because we found ourselves back at the Cafe Roussillon for a nightcap and dessert!  Champagne and Creme Brulee are a perfect way to end the night!!  Sweet dreams......

Day 2-Versailles

Our 2nd day was pretty busy.   We took the RER-train to suburbs-out to Versailles to see the "Sun King's" Palace.  The train ride was uneventful going to Versailles-we all got off at our stop-lol poor Brenda took and extended stop on the way back ;-)  If you have ever seen the movie "Marie Antoinette" by Sophia Coppola, you have seen part of the palace.  A lot of the movie was filmed there.  I really didn't expect the area to be that populated and built up.When we exited the train station, we saw this to our right....

Yep....a Tex Mex restaurant!!!!  Who knew??  After a Creme Brulee latte from Starbucks, we were on our way.  Just down the street to the left was the palace. 

Versailles was built by King Louis XVI-he really enjoyed the good life!

Here is me and Louis ;-)

  Versailles is a beautiful palace-the gold decorations on the building were almost blinding in the sun!

I love history, and being in a place as historical as this still blows my mind! I remember learning about it in Mr. Brown's sophmore history as well as Ms. Keene's FrenchI and II classes.  I had to keep reminding myself that I was in an actual Palace in France!  The rooms and artwork were magnificent!  The gardens were pretty too-we did not see the fountains-they are set to music on the weekends only.  I missed some of the gardens while I waited for the rest of the ladies to use the restroom.  I was waiting by one exit while the exited the other!!  Not a great time for cell phones to no be in service area!!!  Needless to say, they went looking for me in the gardens while I waited for them to exit the restrooms!!  LOL  But my favorite things were the Hall of Mirrors-pictures don't do it any justice...

My other fave was the Hameau de la Reine-the Queens mini Austrian Hamlet-a reminder of Marie Antoinette's Austria-it was a  little section on the grounds with replica's of an Austrian village....

It had a very fairytale feel to it.  The palace itself was absolutely fantastic, but this quit section on the grounds was the best for me! 

                                                                                   

1st night in Paris

After a much needed shower and nap, we were off to explore Paris!  Karen, her Mom-Mercedes and I headed to the corner cafe for some cheese and wine while Brenda and her Mom got ready for our night out.  We had our first of many evenings at Cafe Roussillon!  Here we sat in the corner with a street view-great for people watching.  We had some wine and a cheese plate-the cheese was very good-only one I didn't try was the blue cheese-not a big fan!

No- I did not drink all of these!  LOL  I only had the red that night ;-)

Our table was the last one on the right-this was just 3 builidngs down from our hotel.  Great location!!  We also met Nickolai-our waiter every night!  Very nice place with great staff.  Karen fell in love with the hand dryer-can't believe we did not get a pic with the waiters or the dryer!  The hand dryer was in the restroom and you placed your hands in the opening and hot air blasted out to dry your hands-Karen was very impressed by this!

Once we met up with Brenda and her Mom, we headed out to our Open Bus Night Illumination Tour.  It was a tour on a Double Decker bus that went by all the famous sites light up by flood lights.   This was the only time we needed our coats.  The sites were so pretty to see at night.  Especially our favorite-the Eiffel Tower! 

The Notre Dame-not a great shot-the night pics didn't come out so great...

Crossing over the Seine River

Me on the bus

Brenda on the bus...

We also had some awesome desserts that night at a great little cafe around the corner from our bus tour.  I had Profiteroles with ice cream and hot chocolate sauce-yummmm!!!  So good!  We needed the energy for our long hike back to the hotel.  We were staying on the Left Bank-Rive Gauche-and the bus tour started/stopped by the Louvre-on the Right Bank-Rive Droit.  We walked a lot that night!  I guess in our excitement, we didn't stop to think about transportation to and from!  But the walk was awesome.  Paris really never sleeps.  There were so many people out that I never felt unsafe walking around.  But we needed our rest because we had our trip to Versailles the next day.....

The Grand Hotel Leveque!!

So, we finally arrived to our hotel the Grand Hotel Leveque on Rue Cler.  This street is exactley what you think about when you think of Paris!  Cobblestone streets with every shop you would need-flower, baker, fish, cheese, wine and so much more!  The only bad thing about our location was that the Cheese and Fish markets were located across from one another and right next door to our hotel-not a good smell combo ever!!!  The flower shop would have been a better choice!

I was warned that the hotels in Paris and most of Europe are small-but it was still surprising to see just how small!  The entry was a long hallway with the reception desk on the side.  The elevator was a 2 person max glass enclosed lift.  Was a challenge with our luggage!!  Of course we were on the 5th floor-which innvolved a very steep winding staircase.  But once we got to our room and saw our view, the crazy elevator and stairs were no longer an issue!!

That would be the elevator in the background with the "Out of Order" sign.

But when we saw our view.......

Yep-that is the Eiffel Tower in the back!!  I could literally see it from my bed!!!

Day 1-The long long flight~

So-to get to Paris, France from Texas, you have to fly at least 9.5hrs!!  This was the one thing about my trip that I dreaded the most.  Flying does not bother me at all, I actually enjoy it, but up to now, the longest flight I'd been on was to Boston!

Fortunately I was traveling with seasoned international travelers.  Karen and her mom-who also happen to be the funnest travel partners-where very helpful in the overseas process.  Can't wait to travel with them again!  We had a blast. 

Another fortunate thing was that our plane on the way over was not full-unlike the flight back.  Even though we were in the middle row of seats, Karen and I were able to have an empty one between us for comfort.  One of our movie choices was "Midnight in Paris" with Luke Wilson and Rachel McAdams.  Was a great movie-especially since we were on our way to Paris!  We did have some crying kids-and one set followed us home-but overall the flight over was not too bad-of course I was too excited to sleep-maybe an hour tops-but I figured I'd sleep when my trip was over!  Oh, and there was the fact that my new neck pillow went missing-more on that later-LOL

We left Houston at 3:00pm Monday Sept 26th and arrived in Paris 8:15am Tuesday Sept 27th.  We so looked forward to the "cooler" weather we hoped for in Paris, but when we deboarded the plane, we were hit with hot muggy weather-really?? I thought we left that behind!

The airport in Paris was interesting.  As I mentioned above, my new neck pillow went missing.  Once we finally figured out where our luggage was, we made our way-sweating all the way!  Once there, I noticed this lady standing next to me with a neck pillow-same color, same tags cut at an angle as I cut mine-did this just in case we had a mix up-anyway, when I saw her I asked "Did you happen to find that on the plane?  I lost mine and that looks a lot like the one I lost"-of course I did not want it back-who knows if she was clean-but anyway she looked at me real guilty and says "No, eet is mine" ( my attempt at a french accent-lol)  So Karen and I look at each other and start to laugh-I've been in Paris all of 15 mins and was already pickpocketed-LOL  Like I said-did not want it back, but you can tell she knew it was not hers, and who picks up a neck pillow found on the floor and uses it???  As we came to find out, Pariseans are not all to concerned with hygine!

The next great adventure was getting a ride to our hotel!  Although I had suggested pre-book of a hotel shuttle, we decided that we could find cheaper transport from the airport-because after all-Paris is a big town-shouldn't be that hard-LOL  The joke was on us.  Apparently the way to go is to pre-book through your hotel-we now know for next time!  We were approached by one guy who promised us a ride for 20 euros each-ok-but we had to walk under and over a lot of crazy places to get to his van.......since he had his hand on my luggage for a quite sometime, it was a little hard to walk away.  We finally said thanks but no thanks and headed back inside.  We then found another driver-in a nice suit and all, offer the same deal just to have driver number 1 track us down and try to tell the new driver that he was taking us....long story short, we went with driver number 2.  We felt good that he told us to buckle our seat belts-I figured a crazed murderer wouldn't care about our safety ;-)  After an hour with crazy French rap music, a little country music and some wild driving, we arrived safely at our hotel Grand Hotel Leveque!

George helping me pack!  I think he wanted to go with me on my trip.......

My 1st trip overseas!!

So, this whole blogging thing is new to me, but I thought my trip to Paris would be a great place to start!  I figure with a blog, I can go into detail about my trip for anyone interested in what I did.  I plan on a day by day journal of what we did on our trip-sleep was not top on the list!

To say that I was excited about this trip is a huge understatement!!!  I have always been interested in European culture and have always had a passion for Paris-anyone who has seen my living room would agree!!   Not sure when and where my interest came from, but I love soaking up any bit of culture I can.

Traveling to me is the best gift I feel we can give ourselves.  And this year my birthday gift to myself was my passport!!  Stay tuned as I begin my blog of my adventure!