We arrived in Paris in the late afternoon. Riding a train all day can be exhausting, but we wanted to make the most of our time here. We would have just one day to explore tomorrow before leaving again for Switzerland the next morning. Our hotel was the most sketchy in this town since we didn’t know anything about which area we were booking and all Tom selected was close to a bus stop. It was indeed close to a bus stop, and a McDonalds with free wifi. I didn’t really feel great about staying out past dark in this area though, so I do regret now not going to see the Eiffel Tower lit up at night.
The first afternoon was rainy but we decided to go to the Eiffel Tower since it was the farthest away and of course one of the major sights to see. Luckily it was only a drizzle. We walked around Paris for quite a while and finally found ourselves as the base of the tower. The line was really short with the gloomy weather which was great. Apparently you have to wait hours to go up sometimes. Since I was only 24 and not 25, I even got the kids rate. Not that they even checked this anyway, just took us at our word. Interesting fact: If you are feeling really fit, you can choose to only pay 6 dollars and climb the tower all via stairs. I was surprised Tom didn’t press us doing this and we took the elevator. It is actually quite a process to get to the top. There are lots of stops along the way at different vantage points, and it took three separate lifts to get to the very top.
The next day my main goal was to find the love lock bridge, Pont des Artes, where we had brought a padlock to “lock your love” on the bridge. I have seen pictures of this bridge on the internet and it was honestly one of the things i was most excited about doing. so much fun. the boy played along great.
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Arc de Triomphe was the first thing we saw as we stepped off the metro. The arc is enclosed in a “traffic circle” so to get out to it you have to go underground. We saw some boys get in trouble by cops for trying to cross the street to it. We think our “traffic circles” are confusing, you should see the ones in Paris. Four and five lanes wide and sometimes the rules are backwards where the cars inside the “roundabout” have to yield to cars entering, that’s totally backwards from ours..jpg "_MG_3813")
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we walked for miles to get to this monument. the boy thought it looked so cool from the distance. it ended up being farther, and less cool in person.
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travel tip: we had to do a lot of asking to get our picture taken by other people on this trip. since we both have dslr cameras, a lot of people are unsure of how to use them or seem overwhelmed when we ask them. Now we only look for people who also are carrying dslr cameras. a lot of times, if they aren’t familiar with how to use them, the images end up blurry which is a bummer. this guy who took these was great and wasn’t afraid to move around, take multiple, and change directions. love that.
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Chateau de Versailles. We didn’t pay to go inside this palace, we just walked around the grounds. It was beautiful and very very big..jpg "DSC_3894")
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love lock bridge 🙂.jpg "DSC_4028")
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throwing the keys into the river
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Notre Dame
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i know some people really love Paris, but for us, it wasn’t our favorite. probably not somewhere where we would return again. (still thankful to have checked it off on the list.)
i was really thankful that we made it through paris without seeing any gypsy children or get pick pocketed but the boy was really disappointed that he didn’t see the gypsies.
