Blogs from Paris, Île-de-France, France, Europe - page 380

Our first of many trips to Europe started perfectly with a long weekend in Paris to celebrate our birthdays. Saturday We caught the Eurostar (fast train) from London and before we knew it we were in Paris 3.5 hrs later!. We didnt want to waste any time as we were keen to explore this beautiful city, so after checking into our hotel we explored in style.....a 4hr push bike tour of the city! This was great fun, and was capped off with a boat cruise along the river Seine and a few glasses of red of course! We crawled back to our hotel at about midnight to recharge for the next day. Sunday After breaky we decided to visit the Lourve for the morning......this place was ENORMOUS! To give you an idea, apparently if you spend ... read more

Dan here. Well, it has been a long time since we updated, but here's what's happening: We are in Paris, having been here about 24 hours. Thursday was a day of trains and airports. Our in-flight entertainment during the 55-minute flight from London to Paris was a physical altercation between an irate Frenchman and a mercurial Brazilian over legroom, right across the aisle from us. Literally, an exchange of punches, broken up very late by the flight stewards, and followed by a fair amount of multilingual cursing. The woman next to me, a French lady, turned and said apologetically, "Welcome to Europe." Fortunately, everything in Paris since then has been quite lovely; everyone has been keeping their ethnic tensions packed away. Anyway, today we put in some serious walking miles. After catching the Metro from our ... read more

Ah oui ma cherie, zis is zee fuhrst time in zee pareeee for meh, zoh az you can eeemagine, i ad zee kind of excitment zat not even ah weeping toddler can bear... But first we had to get out of Brussels, but not before eating the biggest pizza I have stuffed down my stomach to date. There was a lot of waiting and smoking and finding ways to sleep comfortably en route to Paris. Seriously, I have short legs and even I had cramped leg space. I curled up in a big ball-shaped ball at least attempting pretend to look comfortable while I tried to better my situation by thinking of all the long-legged/ tall people I hate and how hard their lives are and what they would look like with humps on their backs. ... read more

For all you sex in the city fans out there... Ok, so Paree! For the last 2 nights we have stayed with JoJo, amy's aunt. She is very nice and let us in her home with open arms. Her two sons are adorable. We went to 2 museums and a boat tour yesterday. Today brings the challenge of finding a place to stay for the next few nights. Paris does not have the same charm that it did when I first flew in. Maybe I am tired and have seen too many cities to be blown away by anything any more. I am hoping my attitude will change and last till next week. We will take it easy for the next two days, go to see Versailles, a very large and magnificent castle, then it's shopping ... read more

First was the boulangerie I keep smelling around here. Awesome. We got up early to go to the Louvre, so we went there and the line was insane b/c it hadn't opened yet for some reason. We gave up on that and went to the Centre Pompidou for some modern art. After all, we did have a museum pass. I fail to understand how most of that stuff is art. It's how I might want my living room to look, but Target has the same designs! Maybe I just can't appreciate a huge canvas painted solid blue. The building was pretty cool, though, as was the square. We had lunch in the Toulleries, and that was very picturesque. We then headed back out to the Louvre. The line was much better, but the Japanese tourists were ... read more