When you have such fond memories of a place it's a bit scary to go back for the fear it won't live up to those wonderful memories. But I'm happy to report, Paris was just the way I remembered it and certainly lived up to my high expectations. It was even better being there with Brian and showing him all the things I love about the city.
Similar to our flight to Spain, we left Saturday afternoon and arrived in Paris around 6am local time on Sunday. Our goal is always to try to sleep on the plane so we're ready to go when we arrive, but unfortunately that doesn't seem to work out so well. Especially on this particular flight because Delta apparently offers free beer and wine on flights across the Atlantic (even in coach!) and they had really good movies, so we took advantage of all the above!
We sucked it up when we arrived though and tackled the city! We took the RER to the Latin Quarter area where are apartment was, and started our adventure with an overpriced breakfast in front of the city's most famous Cathedral, Notre Dame. This appears to be a trend with us; we did the same in Barcelona -- we started with an overpriced breakfast by la Sagrada Família. Even though overpriced and not usually spectacular, it's always nice to start the trip with a meal with a great view!
We couldn't check in for a bit so we walked around Notre Dame and visited a little park on Quai St Michel with the oldest living tree in Europe that's still standing (dating back to the 6th century). The person we rented the apartment from told us about the park and tree; he said as a young boy growing up in Paris he'd visit the tree and tell it his secrets. He also said if you hug it, it's supposed to bring you good luck. So, we of course both hugged it to try to get our very own good luck and so far, we can't complain!
We eventually made it to our super cute little apartment right in the middle of the Latin Quarter. Our goal of this trip was to take a relaxing tour around the city and live like a local for a few days. So instead of a hotel, we found an apartment on http://www.homeaway.com/. Here's the link if you want to check it out. We'd highly recommend this place, and the owners were fantastic to work with. The apartment was awesome and the location was perfect. It was close to the Seine River, in the heart of the Latin Quarter, and close to the major metro stops so it was easy to get anywhere we wanted to go.
After we got settled in, where else would we go but the Eiffel Tower! We got a couple of baguettes from a local sandwich shop and hopped on the metro to head to the Eiffel Tower. We enjoyed a great lunch in front of the beautiful monument and it felt great to be in Paris!
We then went to Musée d'Orsay, one of my favorite museums. When I was there in 2005 I saw a painting that reminded me of Brian and me, and we stumbled upon it together which was really neat. I loved showing Brian all of my favorite things in Paris; it was so great to have him there with me. During our tour of the museum the jet lag really started to set in and we almost fell asleep on a bench in the museum. Luckily we were able to power through, went to dinner, and made it until about 9:00pm local time.
The next day was Valentine's Day and what I'm pretty sure will be the best Valentine's Day of my life! We started the day with a trip to the Pont de l'Archevêché bridge, where couples put locks and throw the key in the river. We brought a "love lock" and Brian surprised me and had it engraved with "K&B 2-14-11". After locking it on the bridge and throwing our key in the river, we took a leisurely stroll around Paris (trying to get the feel of being a local), and eventually made our way to the Eiffel Tower where we exchanged Valentine's Day cards and listened to "our song". I got Brian two Valentine's Day cards, one of which was the exact same card he got me! The second was actually one my boss found for me with the Eiffel Tower on the front; a must-have for a Valentine's Day spent in Paris! We then took a trip to the top of the Eiffel Tower around sunset; it was beautiful! We saw a couple of proposals which was neat.
After the Eiffel Tower we headed back to the apartment to change and head to dinner. We wanted to make it to the Louvre before it closed, so we ended up grabbing a quick dinner of baguettes and sprinted to the museum. One night a week the Louvre stays open late, so we wanted to go then and have the nighttime Louvre experience. Unfortunately after we rushed to get there, we noticed we were the only ones there, and eventually realized we had the wrong night! It was closed the following day, and we were leaving too early the next day, so unfortunately we didn't ever make it inside the Louvre. Oh well, I just see it as an excuse to return to Paris! :)
After our failed attempt at the Louvre, we decided to try to make it to the Eiffel Tower before the start of the next "light show". (At night every hour on the hour for about five minutes there is a light show which is really neat to see.) So we hopped on the metro and headed that way. The metro tickets confused us a bit -sometimes you could use the same one for more than one trip, and sometimes you couldn't. So, we just kept trying the tickets and used them until they wouldn't work anymore. On this particular metro ride, Brian used an old ticket and said it didn't work, but for some reason it let him, so he threw it away. I used a new one, handed my ticket to Brian to hold, and we were on our way.
We got off the metro at the Eiffel Tower stop and were trying to leave when we ran into the Paris police who were checking metro tickets. Uh-oh! They had a machine they ran the tickets through to make sure they were legit. They ran the one I had used through and it was fine, but then they wanted a second. Brian and I knew he threw his away and didn't have it, so we tried to show them a new one. They didn't want that one, but wanted the one we had used to get in. After going back and forth for a while, them tempting to fine us 25 euros, and my unsuccessful attempt to summon fake tears, I randomly found an old Metro ticket in my pocket, handed it to them, and said a prayer. Thank God, it worked! At this point we had missed the light show and decided to head back to the apartment because Bridget was scheduled to arrive soon. After all of this, we managed to get on the metro heading the wrong direction! It was a mess of a night, but eventually we ended up back at the apartment.
We weren't able to get in touch with Bridget before we arrived in Paris, and didn't have a cell phone that worked internationally, so we had no clue how she was going to get to the apartment, so we were a little worried about her. We gave her the apartment phone number so we waited to get a call there. After having some french wine, cheese, fruit and bread while we waited, Brian poured another glass of wine and was about to head downstairs to see if he could see Bridget coming. (The road we were on wasn't drive-able, so she had to walk to the apartment.) About that time, we heard heels coming up the stairs and a knock on the door - low and behold - it was Bridget! Apparently I had sent her the directions / codes to get into the apartment building, so somehow she managed to use the code to get in the main door, use another code to get a key to open the gate, and then found her way to our apartment. Very impressive! So we celebrated with a crepe and a walk along the Seine River.
The next day we started at our favorite little cafe near our apartment (La Boulangerie de Papa), went inside the Notre Dame Cathedral and then hopped on the L' Open Tour hop-on, hop-off bus and toured the city. We saw a lot of the main sights including the Sacré Coeur, one of my favorite cathedrals. Sacré Coeur is set on the top of a hill in the Montmarte area and is simply amazing.
After our busy day touring we went to a local store for more french wine, cheese, bread and fruit and enjoyed all of the above at the apartment. We then ventured to the Eiffel Tower (with a bottle of wine in tow) to catch the light show we missed the prior day. We had a fantastic time talking, laughing, and hanging out in front of the Eiffel Tower; so much so that we were there through two light shows! By the time we were ready to head back to the Latin Quarter we saw that our metro stop was closed. When I was in Paris in 2005 the same thing happened and we got ripped off by a cab taking us back to our hotel, so I wanted to avoid recreating that experience. So in my broken, very limited French I asked a street vendor about another metro stop. He pointed down the street and we saw people walking in that direction. We decided to give it a try and followed the crowd. Luckily it lead us to a metro station so we hopped on. We had to make a transfer and we were scared the station was going to close before we could hop on so we were rushing to find our train. I accidentally led us in the wrong direction that took us up an escalator that led us outside of the metro station. There wasn't a down escalator so we thought we were out of options. About the time Brian said, "Well, we can't go down the up escalator so we need to...", Bridget said, "Yes we can!", and started running down the up escalator. I followed, Brian passed me, and so Bridget and Brian were waiting at the bottom cheering me on. Finally we all made it, got on the right metro, and successfully made it back to the Latin Quarter. (I know my writing does quite do this story justice, but it was quite hysterical.) At this point pretty much all of the restaurants were closed except a Greek option, so we settled for a Greek dinner on our last night in Paris.
The next morning we ate at our favorite little cafe again and then hopped on the RER and headed back to the airport (CDG). I recommend leaving plenty of time to get to the airport. After you arrive, you have to transfer within the airport which takes a decent amount of time so the whole process if pretty lengthy. I think we allotted for 2 or so hours and we cut it kind of close. But in the end we made it on the plane just fine and were off to Germany!
You can view all of our Paris photos here.
You can view all of our Paris photos here.
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