Paris - Day 2

Day 2 was LOTS of walking...like seriously, a lot of walking, about 4 hours non-stop. Our legs were dead! (plus mine are pretty pale, I wore shorts both days in hope of getting some sort of tan)

We started the day with a later coffee and croissant. This time we got our Cafe au Lait! Yays! And yum! We didn't have much of a plan for our day. We had a kind of plan of maybe walking along the Champs Elysees, which we did, eventually. First, we wanted to see if the Laduree near the Louvre was a cafe, because then we could have a sophisticated coffee and macaroons. We found the Laduree, but it was just a pop up store in the 'Carousel' shopping centre under the Louvre (which also has an alternative entry to the Louvre...possible way around the long queues?).

The centre has some lovely shops, including Swatch, Fossil, Pylons, Laduree. Lots of lovely places to separate with my money, I think I did well not to! After doing well to resist the temptations coming from the shops we embarked on our unknowingly long walk to Champs Elysees.

We could have been there pretty easily, but we sort of didn't walk far enough around Place de la Concorde to get to the road that led to Champs Elysees, instead we walked along the river. The view was nice though. :) As we looked for toilets, and thus looked at maps, we realised we had totally missed the Champs Elysees, so chose to head to the Arc de Triumph and then walk back along the Champs Elysees.

On the way to the Arc de Triumph we saw this pretty amazing church. It didn't quite fit in it's surroundings, but made quite an impression.

We finally got to the Arc de Triumph, and decided to take a bit of a break and sit under the Arc. I also took the opportunity to find my Godfathers name in the Arc, although it is his surname it's not 'his' name in the Arc but a relatives of his' name. Delort. It's pretty cool to know someone who is related to someone whose name is on the Arc de Triumph. Well, I think so anyway. :)

 The Arc de Triumph is seriously gorgeous from inside, all the curves and details and sky...so pretty from every angle. :)

We then walked back to the Louvre along the Champs Elysees. We were expecting the Champs Elysees to be filled with lots of lovely high end stores...not anymore. It was a long walk back...our feet really started to hurt.

Getting to the Jardin des Tuileries was a huge: "We're almost there!" It's also a gorgeous garden to walk through. Every city should have a garden like the Tuileries, seriously, I think it would make everyone so much happier. It's beautiful. We finally got back to the place we had planned to have lunch at, at 4. It was ok though, we weren't hungry until then, so we kind of made it our lunch/dinner. The view was pretty spectacular. We were surrounded by the Louvre, with a view of the Eiffel Tower.

The food was expensive though, and although the desserts looked good, they weren't as good as their equivalents at our favourite place by the Pompidou.

After our lunch/dinner, we went back to our hotel and went to bed around 7. We planned to wake up from our 'nap' and see if we felt like a small dinner and drinks, but we were too exhausted from our day to go out...so we slept from 7 to about 9 the next day. :P :)

I love Paris.

Paris - Day 1

The building opposite where we stayed that my mum totally didn't notice...

We're in Paris!!! Yay! It took me a while to actually get into the city. My flight over from the UK was great, on time, no problems, awesome. I then tried to remember how I got into Paris 2 years ago, found the name of a stop I remembered, saw it was near where we were staying, got my ticket and onto a train. I so wish I had had some more trouble sorting that stuff out, because if I'd been delayed by a minute I would have missed the train I was then sitting on...and that could have saved me about 2 hours. The trip from Charles de Gaulles airport to the city takes about 40 minutes, my trip took 2 hours and 40 minutes. I know, right? It had all sorts of electrical problems, we were sat between two stops for about an hour, and then just kept pausing between stops...but I got there in the end, and we had a lovely meal at our usual little place by the Pompidou. :)

Today was super lovely! Paris was finally NOT 30 odd degrees, we did not feel like we would burn alive, we were not leaving a trail of sweat. It was awesome! We did our usual coffee and croissant in the morning, around 9:30...so early! :P

We forgot that in France if you order a coffee, you get a small black coffee. It sure did wake us up! We then headed off to walk around Paris. We didn't have much of a game plan for the day, just thought we'd have a wander. We went past the Louvre (it's pretty hard not to from where we are) and oh my! This is the queue we saw...and that's not even the end of it! (I have a photo of the map of Louvre later...I shall try and put into perspective how long this is then)

So, after being totally baffled by peoples willingness to queue for the Louvre (which is over rated in my opinion, much like the Mona Lisa. It's not that it isn't full of lots of art, or that you couldn't spend all day in there...it's just I didn't feel it was any different to any other art museum. I guess it's worth it to form your own opinion though) we decided to find the Notre Dame.

We have stayed in the same area(ish) for our three visits to Paris, and on our last visit (2 years ago) we discovered that we were ridiculously close to Notre Dame. How did we miss it? We have no idea! But we did, so we made a point to visit it this time! It is an amazing piece of architecture, truly amazing. I am so fascinated by it. Loved it.

After quite some time sitting and admiring the Notre Dame we found our favourite little Boat bus, the Batobus (we highly recommend it for anyone travelling to Paris). Getting around Paris on a boat is so very relaxing. We thought we would have a look around the Musee D'Orsay, but unfortunately, there was a queue, and we're not too interested in queuing. So I took a photo of the Rhino outside and off we went.

We knew that Rodin's Museum was nearby, so we went for a walk to try and find that. On the way we saw this. It made me smile. :) (turns out this was all over Paris)

Today the museum had free entry! Go Musee D'Orsay being busy! :D So we happily went in. My mum rested whist I had a little walk around the garden with my camera.

Me and my painted friend, he's not the smiling type.

Another painting friend, he seemed pretty shocked by the trees.

He didn't seem to like the sun too much.

Ah, the three guys doing...something. Everyone was taking photos from the front, but the view from behind wasn't too bad either. :P

We had some ice cream whilst there and sat in the sun by the pond. It was really nice. It was then time to head back to our hotel for a nap. We went past the Hotel des Invalides. It's a pretty awesome building. I seriously love all the older buildings in Paris (in most countries actually, I think we definitely have been lacking in creating awesome architecture recently).

We got the boat from Musee D'Orsay to the Louvre, it's a good 40minute boat ride, but so nice in the weather we had. We then had a walk through the Louvre...at 4, and there was still a queue to get in!

This is a picture of the Louvre and the gardens and whatnot. See that white square? Thats the pyramid thing with the entrance. See the picture below?

The queue, at 4 o'clock, has only just gone past the edge of the pyramid thing (along the bottom edge of the white square in the map picture). That's an hour long wait to get in, see:

The photo I showed you from the morning, was out and along the far edge of the black lines showing the building. Through two archy doorways. It's a long way! It's a bit excessive. Seriously, what are you so keen to see inside the Louvre? The posters of Mona Lisa do do it justice. Anyhoo, let people do what they want. Here a pretty picture of whats outside the Louvre. :)

We then had some beer before our nap. We napped well. Then out for dinner at our favourite place again to watch the football (and enjoy yummy food, AND Chimay Blue!!! :O Seriously awesome restaurant!). :) A pretty awesome day. Bring on tomorrow! :D