We had one free day in Paris. That is not enough time to see everything and it was very overwhelming so we decided to just do a few things and not plan too much. We started out at the Arc de Triomphe built by Napoleon to present his armz when they came back from war. This marks the beginning of the Champs Elysees. Napoleon built this road to be extra wide for military parades so now it is a pretty awesome shopping area. We did lots of shopping and experienced a very unfortunate incident (read Utz's blog for details). We continued down the Champs Elysees to the Louvre, a very famous art gallery that used to be the Royal Palace before Versailles was built. It is where the Mona Lisa is. We walked around the gardens and waited out a small rain storm under a tree. Next we went to see the Ritz Hotel. It is the first Ritz ever and was where Princess Diana spent her last night (she was killed less than a mile from the hotel). Our love for Diana continues.. The Ritz's love for us did not... they would not let us walk around the hotel. Clearly they looked at us and thought we were not worthy to stay in their hotel. From there, we continued to walk through the city, taking it all in. We made a stop at a famous pedestrian bridge over the river where many artists sit and paint. Our next stop was seeing Notre Dame. It was beautiful... just like all the other cathedrals in Europe. Supposedly, the crown of thorns is in Notre Dame and only is shown during lent- that is pretty cool! We did a lot of walking and were pretty tired so we went back to the hotel for to rest for a little bit before dinner and the Eiffel Tower.
We had a really awesome dinner. Definitely my favorite so far and maybe my favorite part of Paris. We took the metro to a quiter, less touristy, very Parisian area. It is small street lined with cute apartment balconies and flowers everywhere. We ate dinner outside, right on the street. It was delicious! We had salad, pizza, garlic bread, and wine. We just sat for awhile enjoying the view and felt like locals! After dinner, we went to see the Eiffel Tower at night. Like I said earlier, the Eiffel Tower is not the coolest thing during the day but it definitely makes up for that at night. We went to the tower and stood under it but the best view is across the street, up a bunch of stairs. We waited there for the tower to "sparkle", which happens for about 5 minutes every hour or so. This was such an awesome sight! It looks like there are hundreds of people standing all over the tower with their flashes going off... but even cooler. It's hard to capture on camera and is definitely worth the trip!
Here are some pictures from our day:
Dinner at a French Bistro
Cute Parisian street!
Outside the Ritz
Almost inside the Ritz
Arc de Triomphe (such a great photographer... thanks random man!)
The pedestrian bridge
The sparkling Eiffel Tower... this picture doesn't even come close to capturing it!
I'm so jealous of you Em!
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