So, Paris totally almost didn't happen. Yesterday (Monday) was our day we'd planned for Paris, and it turns out that Monday was also the day that the Belgian Transit decided to go on a strike! Yeah... And it didn't happen until we were already sitting on our train. Like right after we sat down we felt and heard the train shut down, and then there was an announcement that the train had shut off, and that there was a protest on the tracks. So... we decided to just roll with it for awhile, and we came up with the plan that if it hadn't started running by 10:30am (about 2 hours after the scheduled departure) then we'd just get off the train and go find something else to do that day. We figured maybe we'd just save Paris for a different trip at another time. While we were waiting we watched Star Trek: Into Darkness on McGee's Ipod, so it wasn't so bad. We were completely relaxed really. But, then at about 10am the doors shut, and then the train started up! Off to Paris we went!
The transit employees came through the train handing out flyers with this on it. We didn't understand anything it said, but we got the general idea: We weren't going anywhere anytime soon.
We arrived in Paris at about 11:30am, and took another train to Notre Dame Cathedral, and oh my goodness it's jaw-dropping gorgeous. The windows are absolutely stunning (pictures can't do them justice), and the architecture is really beautiful too. After we finished there, we took the looooong walk from Notre Dame to the Eiffel Tower, walking along the River Seine the whole time. It was beautiful. While walking, we passed by the Louvre, so we stopped by there to just kinda check out the building. We knew we wouldn't have time to go in (that's at LEAST a full day on its own!), so we just checked out the courtyard and the massive building. It's really stunning. We also stopped for lunch (with wine, of course!) on our walk, and we saw the very famous bridge with all of the locks (I have no idea what it's actually called... but I'm sure you've seen it! People buy locks to attach to the walls of the bridge, and it's supposed to "lock them in love forever"... hmm...). After what felt like a millions steps, we finally reached the Eiffel Tower! And then we figured, "Hey, let's walk some more!" so we payed the 5 Euros to hike up the million steps to the 2nd floor. It was a tough climb, but it felt really good when we made it. And the views were amazing.
Notre Dame Cathedral
One of the windows!
Another window!
Notre Dame again!
The locks on the bridge!
You can see the wall of locks!
Part of the Louvre! Such a beautiful building!!
The courtyard of the Louvre! It was great to just hang out here for a bit.
It's so pretty!!
The view from the 2nd floor of the Eiffel Tower! It was very worth the hike.
After we hiked back down those million steps (and my legs were soooo shaky by this point) we decided to go sit at a cafe and relax. McGee had some wine, and I had a coffee (it was chilly outside!). Then we walked back over to the Eiffel Tower, because we wanted to see it all lit up at night! It was soooo darn pretty. After we had our fill of watching people take selfies in front of the Eiffel Tower (people and their selfies are kind of obnoxious here... soooo many people even have those "selfie stick" things!), we took the train over to the Arc de Triomphe (because I was not up for that mile-plus walk at this point), and had a great time viewing the Arc at night. It's beautiful. We sat on a bench and just relaxed and enjoyed the amazing evening. It was lovely.
The Eiffel Tower at night!! Gorgeous.
The Arc de Triomphe!
Here's the view from the bench we were sitting on for awhile! We had the whole area to ourselves.
Then we went to another cafe for dinner, and then it was time to start our train rides back at about 8pm!! It was such an amazing day, and I totally get what all of the fuss over Paris is about. It lives up to all its hype, and it's a really beautiful city. Oh, and just so you know I'm not exaggerating TOO much: We walked about 13 miles yesterday! It felt like more, but that may have been because of all those stairs to the 2nd floor of the Eiffel Tower. Our legs are hurting today!! We're having a blast!!
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