Paris with Tesch!

A few weeks ago our friend Tesch came to visit us in London and we decided to go to Paris for the weekend. We took the Eurostar after Jon was done with work on Friday. This was my first trip on the Eurostar and it was such a great way to travel, very easy and quick! Jon was right about going under the Chunnel...it's just like any other tunnel, but I still wanted to check it off my list! We had a great time chatting and taking in the total train experience on our ride to Paris. However, there was a group next to us who really knew how to take a train ride. They had the most elaborate spread with plenty of beer and wine to sip on(WI friends think concert on the square, ATL friends think Chastain). We were slightly jealous of their preparations, but thoroughly enjoy ourselves anyway. We took the metro to our hotel and when we exited the metro stop we were looking up at the Arc de Triomphe completely illuminated for the night. It was truly a jaw dropping sight to walk out of a metro stop and to be right in front of this iconic landmark. After gathering our wits about us we walked the few blocks to our hotel and found we were staying in a perfect location, just a block away from the Champs-Élysées. Our hotel was lovely and we were welcomed with a bottle of Champagne, so the three of us enjoyed a pre-dinner glass and headed in search of some sustenance. We got a few suggestions from the hotel and ended up at a family looking French restaurant. It was very warm and inviting, the service was great and the food was yummy too! Tesch had Hake wrapped with streaky rashers (anyone surprised??:)) and Crème brûlée for dessert. Jon and I shared a cup of soup, a salad with fried camembert, grilled fish and a cheese plate for dessert! After dinner we walked along the Champs-Élysées taking in the buzzing atmosphere of this beautiful city. We wanted to be well rested for our busy day of sightseeing on Saturday so we headed back to the hotel for the night.

Saturday morning our walking tour was leaving at 11am so we met a bit early to grab some breakfast before our tour. We found our tour meeting spot first and walked around to try and find a cafe, nothing was catching our eye until we spotted a street vendor selling crepes and yummy looking grilled sandwiches. Jon and I got a crepe and a sandwich to share. The crepe was so good Jon went back for seconds! We've had several crepes on our travels and it was so fitting to have the best crepe yet from a street vendor in Paris. We were all fueled up for our 3.5 hour walking tour around Paris! The tour met at the Place Saint-Michael, a fountain in the Latin Quarter. While waiting for our tour to begin we met two girls currently studying abroad in Spain, that were from University of Wisconsin- LaCrosse (where Jon went to university!) and one of them went to high school in Stevens Point (where I went to high school!!)...such a small world! We then continued on to see Notre Dame, Ile-de-la-Cité (natural island in the Seine), Pont Neuf (oldest bridge standing across the Seine), The Louvre, Palais Royal, Eiffel Tower (from a far), Tuileries Garden (a beautiful public garden by the Louvre), Les Invalides (a large complex of building containing museums and monuments relating to the military of France as well as a hospital for veterans), Académie Française (basically established to preserve the language), Palais Garnier (Opera House), Musée d’Orsay (mainly French art museum), Pont Alexandre III (a very ornate beautiful bridge across the Seine), Assemblé Nationale (lower house of Parliament), Champs-Élysées (a beautiful retain haven-one of the most famous and most expensive strips of real estate in the world), Arc de Triomphe (honors those who fought and died for France in the French Revolution and the Napoleonic Wars), Grand & Petit Palais and finally the Place de la Concorde (a major public square). I feel tired after just typing all this out and remembering our whirl wind tour of Paris that was so packed full of information it was hard to digest it all. Our guide was great and even recommended the perfect cafe to re-energize and plan the rest of our day. At the cafe we all shared a meat and cheese spread and a yummy plate of frog legs! If you're wondering...they do taste similar to chicken and I thought they were good, but they were a lot of work for a very small treat.

We decided to spend the rest of our afternoon exploring Moulin Rouge, Montmartre and Basilique du Sacré-Coeur. We took the metro to Moulin Rouge and took a few pictures of the famous theater. We then began our trek up Montmartre, this consisted of several long stretches of steep stairs through the streets, and it was a good thing we're used to walking! Montmartre is a hill about 420 feet above the city with the beautiful basilica Sacré-Coeur on the top. It has stunning views of the city, including the Eiffel Tour and tons of cafe's and street vendors selling artwork and such. After tromping around Montmartre we thought we'd rest up at one of the cafes with a table on the street with more cheese and wine:) After a relaxing evening of great conversation, amazing food and spectacular people watching we headed back to our hotel. We decided to take in a more up close and personal view of the Arc de Triomphe before we turned in. It was unbelievable to be surrounded by so many iconic monuments that I've seen countless times in photos and movies.

Sunday morning, Tesch took a train to Rennes to visit another friend for a few days and we headed out for more sightseeing before our train left in the afternoon. We headed straight to the Eiffel Tower to try and beat the crowds (not sure if that is possible) and there was already a really long line for the lift to the 2nd level (the very top level was closed that day). We saw another much shorter line that was to take the stairs to the 2nd level and over 700 stairs later we made it to the highest viewing point of the Eiffel Tower open that day. This was a magical experience for me, I absolutely loved it!

We walked through the beautiful Champ de Mars, a park behind the Eiffel Tower and headed straight to our sandwich/crepe shop from the day before...it really was that good! After a quick lunch overlooking the Seine we headed for a closer look at Notre Dame. We took in the views from all sides and snapped some great pictures. Next, we headed to Sainte Chapelle. Our tour guide on Saturday told us about this church, it has one of the most extensive collections of 13th century stained glass anywhere in the world. Upon arrival, we found another really long line and since our time was short on Sunday and with so much yet to do we decided to keep moving.

We then headed along the Seine to the Musée d’Orsay to take in some of the impeccable art work featured there. Guess what??? ...more long lines. I know this probably shouldn't have surprised us this much, but it was the most lines we've faced on any of our travels so far. We re-routed ourselves again and headed to the Louvre to the "secret" entrance our tour guide had told us about. Typically, the Louvre has long lines as well, but our guide had showed us an entrance from a far that was apparently not well advertised so not many people knew about it and you can get right in. Well, we found this entrance to be so under advertised that it did not exist...well it was physically there, but it was an exit only! We had a good laugh over this "secret" entrance and continued on a beautiful stroll through Paris and down the Champs-Élysées.

We were pretty beat by this time and headed back to our hotel to pick up our luggage and head to the train. On our way, we stopped at a local grocer to pick up some items (meat, cheese, bread and chocolate!) for our train ride home...we figured we'd do it right this time!

Our trip to Paris was spectacular! It was more beautiful than any photo or movie can portray. As you can tell by our whirl wind visit, we only scratched the surface (albeit a fairly deep scratch:))...I guess we'll just have to make it back there at some point! We had a fantastic time and were so glad Tesch was up for some travel companions!