Paris Day 3 Cont'd

Notre Dame

These 2 are of the front of the catherdral. The details are amazing.

A stain glass inside the cathedral.

Another gargoyle.

A view from the top of the Seine River.

Macen peering out at the city at the top of the Notre Dame.

Louvre

The front of the Louvre. We should have come back in the dark to see it lite up but we didn't.

Macen is wondering why we are having him pose with something that looks human.

A section of the outside of the Louvre. As James said it is a huge, huge place.

Macen spent every chance he got chasing pigeons. It was like nothing else mattered and he had a mission.

The Louvre is divided into sections like sculptures, artwork, etc. We saw the sculptures first and I thought this one was interesting. It was huge.

Ceiling artwork

Jardin de Tuileries

Macen loved the little "ponds" in the gardens. They had ducks and sometimes you could rent these sailboats pictured above. They give you a stick to push your sailboat around in the water.

It was a fairly nice day out this afternoon and the Parisians and tourists lounge by the water.

Macen rode piggyback a lot. Some places wouldn't allow strollers and it's easier to carry him this way, lol.

Paris Day 3: Notre Dame and the Louvre

Today we made it to the Cathedral of Notre Dame, The Louvre, The Rue de Rivoli and The Jardin de Tuileries. We actually went to Notre Dame twice since James had left the card to his camera in the laptop after uploading pictures last night. Here are the pictures after we went back to get his card.

For some reason neither of us could get a good picture of the Mona Lisa, the only thing either of us really wanted to see in The Louvre, can you tell we aren't art nuts? These were the best off of James' camera.One of the long hallways in The Louvre, we read somewhere that there are over 16KM of hallways in the building, that's almost 10 miles, we didn't walk all of it since we were having issues with Macen's stroller and all of the stairs.

The Cathedral of Notre Dame. Once again we walked all the way to the top of the towers across the front of the building and then down again. I don't remember how many steps but James did carry Macen.A close up of a couple of the gargoyle rain spouts. Kind of scary looking huh?Inside the Cathedral, it was huge. When we went in the morning there was actually a mass going on around the altar. Macen riding one of the carrousels, this one in the Jardin de Tuileries.

Angelina's Tea Room Restuarant. We stopped in here for some hot chocolate and chocolate candy, the hot chocolate literally tasted like melted thick rich milk chocolate and the chocolate caramel candies were to die for. This was a recommended online if you love hot chocolate so this was a must stop for me.

We also tried the chocolate mousse (okay, I'll be honest, I tried it 4 times) It was different every time and really, really good each time. The French are also famous for their macaroons but they don't make them with coconut. We aren't coconut fans so these were also on my list to try. We weren't overly impressed with them. There is quite the variety but we tried the strawberry, chocolate and what we thought the guy called caramel. We must have misunderstood him because we think it was coffee. I stuck with the mousse the rest of the time.

Paris Day 2 Cont'd

This is underneath the Arc.

View of the Eiffel Tower from the top of the Arc de Triomphe. I had read online to go to the top of anything you get a chance to for a great view of the city. And we did.

We are close to the top here going back down all the stairs. And there were alot of them. Thankfully they had several resting spots, aka souvenir/info spots along the way.

Macen playing below the Arc.

Anyone want to start making wagers on how long it's going to take me to enter a Louis Vuitton over here, lol? Or maybe we should start making guesses on how long it's going to take me to make a LV purchase. This one was huge so I wasn't as tempted but I will succumb while we are in Europe. James just doesn't know when or where and he isn't going to want to know how much. Ha ha!

Versailles

This gives you an idea on how each of the rooms were displayed.

Majority of the ceilings were masterpieces themselves.

These last 2 are the backside of the Palace. I think the Versailles was my favorite part of our trip other than the Eiffel Tower. I was hoping the flowers would be in bloom in the garden that James posted previously but we were a little too early in the season. It's definitely beautiful without flowers but can you imagine it with them?!

Paris Day 2: Versailles and The Arc De Triomphe

We got up bright and early this morining and headed for the Palace of Versailles.  Talk about extravagent.  I can definitely see how the French had a revolution after seeing the opulence here.  The Palace was built by Louis XIV and improved by several French Kings after him both before and after the French Revolution.  There is more information on it here.

Here are some of the 50+ pictures I took at Versailles.

This was the gilded gate at the front of the Palace, our entrance was to the left of it here.

Macen sitting on the steps right in front of the Palace.

A look at the front of the palace those are the steps that Macen posed on.

The famous Hall of Mirrors.  This is where the Treaty of Versailles that ended World War I was signed.  It is flanked by the War Drawing Room and the Peace Drawing Room.

A look out the backside of the Palace at a reflecting pool and some of the gardins

Macen and Shantel in front of the one of the pools in the garden.  In case you couldn't tell Macen was all wound up today.

After returning from Versailles we all took a nap, Macen didn't get one yesterday and Shantel and I were pretty beat as well.  After our nap we headed out to see the Arc de Triomphe and the Champs de Elysees.

Here is the Arc, we couldn't get very good pictures of it because they are doing restoration work on all of the sculptures on it.  It was commissioned by Napoleon after he crushed the Austrians at Austerlitz, but it wasn't completed until the 1830's long after Napoleon and France had been defeated and suffered a series of military setbacks.

Shantel at the top after climbing the 287 steps.  She didn't even carry Macen!

The view from the top of the Arc down the Champs de Elysees.  This is the traditional finish route of the Tour de France.

The French honor their unknown soldier from World War I, just like the US, with an eternal flame under the Arc de Triomphe. 

Paris Day 1 Cont'd

Dora, Boots and Swiper made the trip with us to Paris. But they were forgotten after this meal because James bought Macen an Eiffel Tower keychain this night. It went everywhere with us for the rest of the week

We've Made It To Paris....France That Is

You know I'm not always the brightest light bulb in the chandelier but something finally clicked the other day and I told Shantel that if she wanted to go to Paris so bad I could of saved a lot of money by taking her to Paris.....Missouri that is, heck I might of even sprung for a trip to Paris, Texas. Oh well fortunately for Shantel I'm not always the quickest thinking guy.

We've made it to Paris and we've done some wandering around already. The serious sightseeing starts tomorrow but here are some pictures of what we've done so far.

Macen on the tarmac at the Nuremberg Airport waiting to get on the plane.

Of course where is the first place we head? Got to get that pilsner glass!

The proof no chocolate milkshake out of this glass!

The Eiffel Tower before the lights come on.

And after all the lights come on.

OK we'll flesh out the posts a little more after we get back home, we just want to show a few of the pictures after each days adventure. Look for more posts the rest of the week and then revisions and additons after the weekend. I hope everyone enjoys.