Bonjour

We took a train from London St Pancreas Station to Paris. It took a little over two hours. Once we got there we checked into our hotel and dropped off our bags. Joel and I wanted to see the Eiffel tower first so we hopped on the tube and took it to a viewing point of the Eiffel tower. It is absolutely breath taking.


We decided to go ahead and climb the tower. You climb 2 levels of stairs (major killer) and then take a lift to the top, over 900 feet above ground.

From there we went to the Arc de Triumph sooo amazing, you can see it from everywhere.

We walked from their down to Champs Elysees (the shopping is amazing- good lord what I could do with some money to burn). That walk took us to the Louvre gardens, and to the outside of the Louvre. It was getting cold so we left and headed back to the hotel. We got in and just really warmed up and headed back out to dinner. We ended up having a great meal at this Japanese restaurant-it was a total laugh watching Joel and I try to order Japanese food in french!!

The next day we started off at the Louvre. The Louvre is really cool, seeing all the famous works-its hard to believe they are real. We saw the Mona Lisa - honestly I would have to say I was underwhelmed...but there was some really amazing work there.






The Louvre is also connected to a mall, where they were opening the first Apple Store, the lines were miles long and the French were screaming and cheering! It was hysterical. From the Louvre we walked through Paris and saw Fauchon which is one of their famous food shops and La Duree, a famous patisserie. We also had Paris' best hot chocolate at Angelina. We made one more food stop at La Maison du Chocolat where we bought hand made chocolates including champagne truffles. We headed to Notre Dame and climbed to the top. The history is amazing there, and the bell tower is just unreal. The bell is over 13 tons. I felt like I was living in Victor Hugo's world. The gargoyles watching over Paris are absolutely enchanting.



We watched the sunset set at the top of Notre Dame and then made a mad dash to Museum d'Orsay which for me the highlight seeing Dega's Ballerina, as well as several of Van Gogh's painting including a self portrait.





After the museum we decided to head back to Champs Elysees for dinner, lets just say dinner was NOT good. When we got back to the room we had our champagne truffles and called it a night.





The next day we decided to take a day trip to Versailles. We took a train to Versailles. The chateau is soooo beautiful as are the grounds. The most amazing part was the hall of mirrors. If you get a chance google it or we will show pics when we can. The gardens at Versailles made the gardens at the Getty museum look like a preschool garden. Its unreal the sculpture and art involved in the landscape there.






Once we left Versailles we headed to the Musee Rodin where we saw The Thinker and Rodins Gates if Hell. To top off our day we headed to Mariage Freres the most famous loose leaf tea house in Paris, that has been around since the 1800s. We grabbed a bite on the street and headed back to the room for a quick rest. Because the Eiffel tower is celebrating its 120 birthday there is a special light show - so we went back out to watch the show. The Eiffel tower is even more beautiful at night all lit up. It was such a site to see it light up with different colors and effects. Of course we had to top off our evening with crepe stand treats, chocolate and banana crepes and fresh made churros.

The last day we were in Paris we decided to shop around the city. We went to some boutiques and walked around shops for most of the day - grabbing lunch in Fauchon before heading back to catch the train to London.

See our facebook pages for all the pictures