Paris in the Springtime

Wow! Just got back from 18 days in Europe, which somehow seemed like both a long time and not long enough. I think it's a good thing we didn't take Snoopi with us, because if we had her we might have been tempted to just never come back. It was amazing! We took almost 500 pics, obviously I won't put them all on here, but if there's anyone who wants to see them all (i.e. our moms), I'll include links. We left Salt Lake on a Wednesday morning and arrived in Paris Thursday morning. It was too early to check into our hotel, so we spent our first day exploring a little worn out and ragged looking, but it was still amazing. First stop was the Notre Dame cathedral, but much to our delight, just outside we discovered tents set up for the Fete du Pain. Steve later corrected himself to tell me the real translation was Bread Festival, but I preferred his original translation, Bread Party. Nothing better to start a visit in a new city than a bread party with free samples! Yum! Fitting for the trip, too, since for the rest of our time in Paris I ate pastries for pretty much every meal. Now that we're back home I'm still having major cravings for croissants and gelato (which I ate every day in Italy....how do Europeans stay so thin?). After Notre Dame we headed over to the Louvre, where we spent 4 hours, and probably would have stayed longer if we weren't so tired. It's a little overwhelming, but in a good way, it's hard to believe we were arm's length away from some of the greatest masterpieces in the world's history. We checked into our hotel room (tiny, but clean and cozy) and our little nap before dinner turned into a full night's sleep. The next morning we went to the Sacre Coeur cathedral, which was cool because it's high on a hill with great views. Then Arc de Triomphe and the Eiffel Tower, where we waited in line for a while to ride an elevator to the top. As amazing as it was to be on top of the Eiffel Tower, it was a little hard to enjoy because I was SO COLD! I had not been anticipating the cold weather in Paris, and hadn't packed for it at all, so while other people were bundled up in winter coats and boots, I was in a light cardigan and flip flops, and the wind on the top of the tower was chilling! I bought a scarf from a street vendor when we got down, but could not warm back up. So we went to the indoor venue of Les Invalides, home of Napolean's Tomb. There was a French war museum there, and Steve was in heaven, so we stayed for a while. As a reward to myself for the time in the war museum, the next stop was shopping ;) I found an H&M and bought myself a coat and some leggings to pull on under my dress. Much better! Then we walked along the Seine River and back to Notre Dame (in the hopes that the Bread Party would still be there, it wasn't). Once again, we went back to our hotel room to get ready for dinner and...fell asleep at 9:00. All that walking is really tiring. On our last day, we woke up early (easier to do when you're going to bed at 9) and took a train out to Versaille. The palace is a really good symbol of the opulence of the French royalty at the time, kind of ridiculous, but cool to see. Then we came back to Paris and hung out for a while on the Champs-Élysées (where we got crepes for lunch-yum!) and saw all the cool shopping and car showrooms, and then just wandered around the sitting taking in all the sights we could. That night we FINALLY made it out for a night on the town in Paris....unfortunately, we went out a little late, thinking that since it was a Saturday night the city would be bustling late into the night. Not true. So many places were closed! You can find open restaurants in Provo, Utah at 10:00, but not in Paris- crazy! So we got ourselves lost looking for a restaurant, it was raining, and we wandered around these empty neighborhoods full of closed restaurants until finally, close to midnight, I broke down and hailed a cab and had him take us back to the Champs-Élysées, where we found this nice French-Alsace restaurant and had a great dinner. It was a fun last evening in Paris, and Paris was a great place to begin our trip! So chic and cosmopolitan, and such a good example of a very European city, I'm really glad we had a few days to spend there, but I'd love to go back for more! To see all our Paris pics, click HERE.