The third stop on our trip was Paris. We arrived by train from Bruges around lunchtime on Sunday, July 7th, which meant that we got to celebrate our first wedding anniversary in the City of Love. However, before we could celebrate, we had to first get to our hotel from the train station. Already tired from hauling our luggage through Bruges, we departed from the Paris Gare du Nord station on the Metro, navigating stairs, narrow turnstiles, gaps in train platforms, and crowded trains, then busy sidewalks and traffic on the street. Paris is definitely not set up for traveling easily with luggage, but we eventually made our way past tons of cute cafes to our hotel in the Marais neighborhood. After a quick break, we decided to head out to get some lunch and explore. Just steps away from our hotel, we picked a cafe and snacked on cappuccinos and open faced toasted sandwiches with ham and melty cheese that tasted delicious. Refueled, we then hopped on the Metro for our first glimpses of the Eiffel Tower and the Louvre. Both are iconic, and it’s easy to see why. We weren’t out for too long, though, since we had dinner reservations at 7:30 at a restaurant on the other side of town. We ate at a cute bistro that specializes in classic French country food. Shared a bottle of red wine from the Rhone, shared a charcuterie board, and had cassoulet and roast pigeon.After dinner, we spent some time walking through Paris, eventually making our way to the Eiffel tower–a perfect way to end our anniversary evening.
The Louvre Pyramid 
Cassoulet and Pigeon 
Cheers to 1 Year! 
My Love 
Eiffel Tower
Day 1: Louvre and Eiffel Tower
On Monday, we had a busy day of Paris highlights planned. First up was the Louvre, where we had tickets for entry right when it opened at 9am. We took the Metro over, which dropped us off in the Carrousel du Louvre, a fancy shopping mall underground. Since we had to enter from the above-ground pyramid for our tickets, we made our way through the mall as it was starting to open up for the day and emerged outside to an already-large crowd of people. Even with timed tickets, the line was still long to get in, first through the security check, then to the ticket scanner. We eventually got inside, but because we’d left our hotel without breakfast, our first stop was to the cafe for some food. The coffee was awful, and the pastry we shared wasn’t great either, but at least we had some fuel. After some flipping through the museum map, we set out toward the exhibits. On the way, we picked up a couple audioguides. I had really enjoyed audioguides in some of the museums in Amsterdam and Bruges, so I was excited to use them at the Louvre too. However, those other audioduides were simple handsets that we used by entering a number and then listening to a brief explanation of the art piece to add some context while browsing. However, the Louvre’s, on the other hand, were Nintendo DSs with lots of buttons, touch screens, interactive mapping, and 3D, and I felt like I could barely figure out the tutorial, let alone use the audioguide. Chris didn’t have much more luck, although he figured out the map navigation somewhat more than I did After a few attempts, we finally figured out how to select an audioguide item, but then we learned another downside of the Louvre’s system: the narration was LONG, with lots of detail and interviews with experts, and just too much. Partway through our time in the museum, we gave up on the audioguides. Unfortunately, most of the information about the art was only in French, so although we enjoyed looking at the pieces, we didn’t learn a whole lot. We did see the Mona Lisa (cool, but hard to actually see with the huge crowd), and the Venus de Milo, and lots of other amazing art, but the crowd was thick and there was so much art that it was overwhelming. By a little after noon, we were tired and the museum was getting more crowded by the minute, and it was time to be done. We both agreed that the Louvre was incredible, but would have been better on a less crowded day with a different audioguide system. Maybe someday we’ll return and try again!
The Louvre pyramid 
Trying to understand the audioguide 
View of the pyramid from a cafe at the Louvre
Lunch was a delicious croque Madame sandwich at a cafe near the Louvre. Chris had remembered the dish from his first trip to Paris, and was excited to try it again. Like our late lunch yesterday, this sandwich had ham and cheese, but this one had two slices of softer bread with the cheese melted on top of both. Yum!
Our afternoon stop was the Eiffel Tower. It was also crowded, but we had purchased a guided tour to get in more quickly. The guide was a Costa Rican guy who had married a French woman and seemed truly excited to share some information about the tower and about Gustave Eiffel. After making our way through various security, ticket, and elevator lines, we emerged on the summit (top level) of the tower to a gorgeous view of Paris. The city, with its consistent height and wide curving streets spreads out around it. From the top, there are views of the Seine river, the Louvre, the Arc de Triomphe, and so much more. Absolutely gorgeous!
After the tower, we wandered around a bit and came across a neat little street with a fabulous patisserie/chocolatier and a wine store. We bought some macarons and picked out a couple of bottles of wine from the Rhone to commemorate our anniversary.
Day 2: Versailles
Our second day in Paris was spent at Versailles. We took the train out of the city and arrived at the palace gates just before it opened at 9am. Like the Louvre, we had purchased timed entry tickets for right when the palace opened. Also like the Louvre, it was a huge time saver, since the line to purchase tickets was already snaking around the courtyard. After the usual security check and ticket line, we got into the palace and made our way through the rooms, marveling at the ornate decorations and learning a bit about what life was like for the French royalty. It is so huge, we didn’t even see the whole palace and were there for almost 3 hours! The gardens outside were just as grand and beautiful. We followed the suggested walking path around to the main highlights, and walked about 5 miles without even seeing large parts of the gardens. The gardens themselves were beautiful, and that day they were doing musical fountain shows at some of the groves, so the fountains went off regularly choreographed to music. Kind of like the Bellagio in Las Vegas! We also made stops at the Grand Trianon (the summer palace) and the Petit Trianon, where Marie Antoinette had lived. By late afternoon we were tired, so we hopped on the train back to Paris. Since there was still some time left in the afternoon, we decided to check out a museum we’d spotted on the map, the Musee du Vin (Wine Museum). It was tucked away in a hidden corner and we totally missed it on our first attempt, but we eventually found it and decided to give it a try. The only problem was that they were out of English audioguides, and all the displays were in French. The museum staffer hurried off and came back a few minutes later with another one. The only problem, we discovered, was that all the commentaries were in reverse order and there was no way for us to control their play. So we just went with it and did the whole thing backwards. Afterwards, we got a sample of wine. Chris chose red, which was a Bordeaux, and I got white, which was Jacquerre from Savoie, which I had never heard of before.
Amazing painted ceiling at Versailles 
Gardens outside the Grand Trianon 
Musical fountains at Versailles
Day 3: Monet and More
On our third day in Paris, we went to the Musee d’Orsay and the Orangerie Museum. The wine shop owner we talked to on Monday had recommended buying tickets online to avoid the ticket line. It was a great tip, since we got to skip by another long line of people waiting to buy tickets. The Musee d’Orsay turned out to be one of our favorite museums of the trip! The museum collection includes a ton of gorgeous paintings by Monet, Van Gogh, and other impressionists and post-impressionists, and is located in a former train station. It was amazing to get to see those amazing works in real life, especially in such a cool architectural setting. We made our way through, with a stop for lunch in the middle at the museum cafe, then headed over to the Orangerie, which is in the garden outside of the Louvre. The main feature of the museum is Monet’s Water Lilies painting, which was painted for the building and covers the walls of two oval-shaped rooms. It was really beautiful, but hard to take in all at once. Luckily the rooms had some long benches that were great for getting off our tired feet and gazing at the painting. After the Monet, we checked out the rest of the museum, then headed out to go get a snack. That evening, we did a little shopping, learned a little bit about natural wine, and had dinner in a busy cafe, before heading back to the hotel to pack.
Post-Impressionist painting at the Musee d’Orsay 
Crossing the Seine 
Monet’s Water Lilies
Bye Bye Paris
Thursday was another travel day, this time from Paris to London. We had time in the morning for a nice breakfast and made a last-minute macaron purchase to enjoy on our travels, then headed to the train station. We took the Eurostar train, which is a high speed train under the English channel.
