The last week of August (which also feels like forever ago), we went to Paris for our 5 year anniversary. This was kind of a spontaneous destination choice because we had talked a lot about Greece and other longer journeys like Thailand, but Paris seemed to fit our 5 day limit perfectly!
It was 3 flights to get there but we didn't find it too bad since travelling without kids is a vacation in itself. We also left directly from London which was super convenient and just a better friendly airport to go from.
We finally got there around 7am Paris time which was 2am our time so we were pretty tired. Too tired to figure the transportation system out right away and spent $50 on a bus to our hotel (our subway back home was only around $10!). But after the bus dropped us off, we were right beside the arc de triumphe and this is the first thing we saw! It is way bigger in person than I thought.
Our hotel was about a 10 minute walk from the Arc and luky for us we were able to check in when we got there around 9am and sleep!!
After a good nights rest from 9am-1pm, we started our first day adventure at the bakery that became our favourite on the street right by our hotel. Every morning we would grab espressos or cappuccino and pastries and she had the best!
After walking down the Champs D'elysee where all the shops are (Loius Vuitton is how we knew we were at our street!), and stopping at all the sights along the way heading toward the Louvre (or as we like to say the Loove), we had a little stop at the restaurant in the park for a drink. It was a great first sit down experience taking 20 minutes to take our order, 20 minutes to serve our singular drinks and Aleksy ordering this flat, red grenadine beer.
Getting closer to the Louvre we saw the ferris wheel and glad I got this picture because we saw it go down and get hauled away on trucks the day after!
And we made it to the louvre! We were more there for the architecture and exterior than the art work inside. We are not gallery people so we sacrificed seeing the Mona Lisa because we knew it wouldnt be our thing! We also heard on our river cruise that if you took a few seconds to look at every picture in the museum, it would take 2 months so...
Nearby the museum, we found a wine tasting room, les caves de louvre. This is when we first realized that every wine in France is good. It doesn't matter what the kind, if we don't usually like it back home.... all delicious!
After walking all the way to the louvre, we didn't realize how far we had walked out and were pretty tired of walking. And on the way back, we accidentally ran into the lock walking bridge!
There was a street vendor right there selling overpriced locks at something crazy like 10 euros so obviously we bought one to lock down our love (until they have to cut them down again if it weighs the bridge down!).
We ran into so many good surprises this day including this street with so many shops and take away crepe places.This ham and cheese crepe was amazingly cheesy!
That night we had planned on heading to the Eiffel tower but by the time we got back to the hotel it was past 8pm and we were exhausted so we stayed in, had some delicious 5 euro grocery store wine with some cheese and ham and 1 euro brie.
The next morning, we went down to the subway station by the Arc de triomphe and got a deal of a ride all day pass for 3.40 euros each! We grabbed the subway and then transferred to a train to head to the Castle of Versailles.
This is the grounds of Versailles. So big and beautiful.
And we rented bikes and rode around the grounds for an hour. This was the best decision. We would have never known how big the grounds truly were without bikes! This day we wished that we had packed a baguette and wine for a little picnic on the grounds but what happened each time on this trip was when we packed wine, we carried it all day and there was no opportunity to sit and enjoy it and if we didn't bring it we wished we had.
We also were able to check out some of the water fountain shows (kind of like the Bellagio but castley) and the whole outdoor grounds had classical royal music playing to set the tone!
McCafe... but not the same as ours! This one had tons of macaroons... all the flavours! We had some and they were delicious. Im pretty sure there was no traditional coffee that we serve. Just espressos and cappuccinos.
After exploring Versailles including getting take away heinekens, finding that toilet seats are not necessary in washrooms, and biking the grounds, we walked into the town of Versailles for some lunch. We picked the spot we thought looked the most french and then picked the most french food we could... french onion soup and escargot! The escargot was chewy but not gross at all.
After a busy morning of walking around and the train back, we had our daily rest time from being on our feet from around 6-8pm then headed to the Eiffel tower equipped with baguette, jam and wine to enjoy the view!
We got a good spot in the front of the back park this night and learned that there are about 1000 vendors out selling everything every night there at the tower... we got Leah a backpack, Logan a toy bird that flies and even bought some wine from the guys yelling "beer, wine, beer wine!" all night as we try to have a romantic evening by the Eiffel tower.
After a bottle of red and champagne bottle, thsi street meat looked and smelled so good. It was on the bridge on the way back to the subway and this is the only "street meat" we saw. Street crepes were clearly more of the french thing...
The problem with drinking all the wine by the eiffel tower is there are no washrooms anywhere! So bushes were it and I had to hit them a couple times and this was the time Aleksy saw rats in the bushes beside us. I heard them but didn't see them thank goodness!
Those "beer, wine, beer, wine!" vendors got us even on the way to the subway back home and we were not stable enough to make the responsible choice to say no and this happened openly on the way home. Seemed like a great idea at the time...
The light show of sparkly lights was every hour on the hour in the evening (last one I think was midnight but we only made it to 10pm this night and 11pm the other night we went!).
