After a night of flying and attempting to sleep as a contortionist with a pillow the size of a large wallet, we arrived in Paris. EF Tours were easy to find and the transfer to the bus and hotel was easy and simple. A nice touch considering our French is poor and our cognitive ability even worse. We dropped off our baggage, washed our faces and hit the ground running!
Our first lesson was a quick session on how to use the metro in case we got separated, followed by a quick ride to downtown Paris. While our hotel was outside of Paris proper, in Nanterre, it was a short 5-10min metro ride to downtown Paris. Up the stairs and Voila!
We had an excited Dora and some amazing architecture in sight! In fact, we couldn't help but pose for a quick photo with the standard landmark in the background. The weather was cool but comfortable as we made our way West to another famous site.
Directly to the West of the Concorde, the largest open plaza in Paris was the Louvre, that famous art museum that used to be the residence of the king before he moved to Versailles. The size of the building is hard to comprehend, especially considering the size of some of the other buildings. With some quick instructions we were given about 2hr to explore this monstrosity of a building filled with some amazing pieces of art. To say it was overwhelming would be an understatement and combined with our sleep deprived state, much of the tour was like a foggy wonderland. We did of course, see the famous Mona Lisa as well as the wedding feast of Cana, a 20ft x 30ft painting. While the Mona Lisa was an impressive thing to see, the large format portraits, the paints that took up entire walls were more impressive to me as well as the building itself. Dora was quite amazed by some of the tapestries as well. Too much for 21 day, never mind 2hr.
At this point we came to realize that we were starving! So at 5:30 we were off for another quick metro ride to dinner. The restaurant was this quaint spot that appeared to be out of the way in Paris, the food was good, but left me wanting to explore the culinary options more. We had planned on heading back to the hotel after dinner, but an espresso later and the offer of a trip to the top of the arch de triumph resulted in a change of plans.
This was probably my highlight for the day. The night enveloping Paris and the lights shining bright. 284 steps later and we had much of the city in our sights. The Eiffel tower was an obvious focal point with may other landmarks in sight. The arch itself was an impressive site to see at night with a warm glow of light covering its sculptures and art reliefs. What a day!
Back at the hotel we weren't sure if we were tired, exhausted or on our fourth wind... regardless, we'll try and get some sleep.
Special thanks again for those people that made this trip possible, it's been such a treat to travel with Dora again. Family... we love you and miss you. See you soon!
1 comments:
Your blog is awesome and it looks like you had a fabulous time in Paris. Thanks so much for sharing!
-Katie from EF Tours
Post a Comment