Paris - Day 3

Day 3 was a rainy day in Paris. First, we strolled through the Latin Quarter, which was one of my favorite little neighborhoods. Paris is a really big city, so at times it felt really overwhelming and like there was no way we could ever see it all.  The Latin Quarter, though, was pretty small with narrow, cozy streets and that made it seem much more manageable to me. Also, the streets were lined with restaurant after restaurant, most of them displaying their rotisseries in the store front, so everything looked really warm and inviting on a rainy, chilly day.  After the Latin Quarter, we saw the Conciergerie, which is a former prison where Marie Antoinette and other famous people were held before being sent to the guillotine, and Sainte Chapelle,  which was full of colorful stained glass and, in my opinion, the most beautiful cathedral that we saw in Paris.  Again, the museum pass came in super handy this day as we literally walked to the front of an extremely long line of people standing in the rain for the Conciergerie, and Rick Steve's guide didn't fail us either as he offered bits and pieces of information about each of our stops. 

After seeing these two sights and because of the chilly, damp weather, we pretty much cafe hopped the day away, but we did happen upon a beautiful sunset just as we were crossing the Seine River.  It was a good, good day. Here it is in pictures:

Cafe stop for some Olympic watching. Along with Spain and the US, we watched the 2012 Olympics in 3 countries!

Luke trying to take a pic where it looked like I was coming out of the glass. I'm a genie in a bottle pint glass.

Sainte Chapelle

Sainte Chapelle took only 6 years to build, which was unheard of in those times. Notre Dame took over 200!

The ceiling of Sainte Chapelle.

Climbing up the windy stairs at Sainte Chapelle.

Beautiful Stained glass covered the cathedral. As we learned through our Rick Steve's guide, from the life of Moses to the crucifixion of Jesus to the coming Judgment Day, many of the glass panels depicted a different Biblical story for a total of more than 1,100 scenes. Very cool!

 

The biggest beer ever. I'm glad we shared!

Super excited about warming up with his bowl of French onion soup.

Crossing the Seine River.

Sunset as we passed back over the Seine.

More snails!

Concentration is key. They were slippery little guys!

And now I'm off for a meeting about finally getting started on some Spanish lessons, so the rest of Paris will have to wait. (I know, I know. The suspense is killing you!) Wish me luck! :)

Paris - Day 2

On our first morning (second day) in Paris, we set out fully equipped with our Paris museum pass and Rick Steve's guide to Paris.  We had a quick breakfast, where Luke began his love affair with tea.  He ordered it multiple times throughout the rest of our trip, bought several different types of tea to bring home with us, and has basically been a tea guy ever since. 

Then we headed straight to the famous Louvre museum. With our museum pass, we skipped the long line and got in free. Score! Once inside, the museum is gigantic, and although we knew we had to see the Mona Lisa, we really had no idea where to begin. So we turned to Rick Steve's self-guided tour to the Louvre and were really impressed. He took us from important piece to important piece with a little interesting write up on each one.  When we left, we truly felt like we had seen everything we needed to see, and we didn't spend all day doing it.  The Greek statues were really interesting to me. So many of them were missing arms, hands, even heads, due to how old they are.  The Mona Lisa was a little underwhelming.  Kind of small, behind a glass wall (unlike all the other paintings) and surrounded by a huge crowd of "paparazzi." 

The pyramid outside the Louvre.

The statue of Greek Goddess Venus.

Luke had the idea to do a series of pics like this. Unfortunately, we only got one.

Outside the Louvre.

The Mona Lisa....

and all her adoring fans.

A Razorback in Paris! Go Hogs!

Once we finished at The Louvre, we started another of Rick Steve's self-guided walking tours through Historic Paris.  The big stop on this walk was the Notre Dame cathedral. We walked through the beautiful church but didn't wait in the long line to climb the tower. Unfortunately, our museum pass failed us at this line, and after standing in the same spot for about 15 minutes, we decided against the wait. We also strolled through Ile St. Louis, which is described as one of Paris' most exclusive neighborhoods.  After walking to the end of the narrow street, we bought some dark chocolate for me, and a pastry for Luke and sat to enjoy our treats with a coffee before heading back to the Left Bank of the Seine River. 

Notre Dame.

Beautiful stained glass.

The famous Gargoyle on the Notre Dame Tower.

Consulting my Paris guide with Notre Dame in the background.

Luke's take on how European he is...Espresso, Euros, Spanish Residency Card (NIE) and 2 Subway passes. 

We passed a few more spots on the Historic Paris walk, including the Luxembourg gardens, as we walked back to the hotel to freshen up for dinner.  We decided to try out an Italian disco/club on this night.  The disco that we decided on also had a restaurant in the bottom floor, and we read that our best bet of actually making it in the disco without a long wait was to go early and have dinner there beforehand. That was our plan until the taxi dropped us off, and we realized the place was no longer in business. So we settled for a restaurant nearby to where we had been dropped off and enjoyed a really good dinner, including the French staple of burgundy snails. (Don't knock it until you've tried it; they were really tasty!) Also at dinner, we ended up sitting next to another American couple and after talking to them a bit realized they were also from Dallas. (Small world!) Then we took a taxi to a different disco. Unfortunately, the place was empty when we arrived since European parties don't start until late in the night/early in the morning, and I quickly got tired. (I know, I know...party pooper!) We headed back to the hotel without seeing the Italians party but not before doing a little two-stepping across the dance floor. When in Rome....

(Update: Please replace all the above references to Italian and Italians to French. I am aware that Paris is in France, not Italy. However, for some reason, I always say Italy. I did it before and during the trip, and now after. Luke says, "At least I'm consistent!")

Our first French snails!

The little boogers up close!

The only pic of the 2 of us from this night.

People starting to arrive at the Disco as we left.

Days 3 - 6 up next!

Paris - Day 1

Since Luke was fortunate enough to be included in the Spanish tradition of taking nearly the entire month of August as vacation, we've been traveling all over the place with just a day or two pit stop at our apartment in Madrid.  In just one month, our schedule was like this:

Madrid ----> Paris ----> Madrid ----> Dallas ----> Madrid ----> Greece ----> Madrid ----> Italy ----> Madrid.

Now we're safely back in Madrid, completely unpacked with no upcoming trips scheduled (yet!), and I've got a lot of blogging to catch up on and tons of pictures to share. (We took nearly 500 in Greece alone!) Although it's been nearly a whole month, I figured I'd start from the beginning when we visited Paris from August 3 - August 8 and celebrated our third anniversary!

We took an early morning flight to Paris and even after some bus ticket confusion and a 1.5 hour bus ride, we arrived in Paris with plenty of the day left.  We checked into our hotel, which was nothing special but clean, comfortable andf in a prime location right in the middle of the St. Germain de Pres neighborhood. We quickly grabbed a bite to eat to fuel the rest of our day and set out to walk the city.

Cheese!

First French lunch and wine.

Although I'm not typically a fan of gray skies or rain, it was really refreshing in Paris.  Each day (except our last), the temperature was probably in the mid 60's with periods of sun, clouds and several little rain showers.  Since we came equipped with our matching rain jackets, which we wore pretty much the entire time, we never minded the drizzle, and when the rain picked up, it was the perfect opportunity to pop into a nearby cafe for a cup of coffee or glass of wine. 

Our first glimpse of the famous tower.

Cloudy skies in Paris.

Our first day in Paris, we didn't really have a plan (or a map), so we just started walking and happened upon the Museum of the Army and the Tomb of Napoleon.  There's not much to say about this except that we walked through quickly and checked it off the things that you should see in Paris list. :)  However, it was at this Museum that we decided to buy a 3-day Paris Pass that I'd read about in Rick Steve's Guide to Paris and would allow us "free" entry into most of the major sights and, at times, even allow us to skip the long ticket and entry lines.  The pass ended up being a great decision and gave us a plan for the upcoming days. 

Luke's artsy take on the Museum of the Army.

And again with the Eiffel Tower.

Sunny skies outside the Museum and just after a quick rain.

Next up, the Eiffel Tower, which was my favorite part of Paris.  Before visiting the tower, I wasn't sure if it would be really cool or really touristy and kind of a let down after seeing so many pictures of it and stuff, but it didn't disappoint.  It was beautiful during the day and night, and it was so cool to look up nearly anywhere in the city and be able to point it out.  We waited in line for tickets for about 30 minutes and chose the option where we would climb the stairs up to the second platform and then take an elevator up to the very top.  The stairs weren't as bad as you might think, and you could even stop on the first platform to enjoy the view and grab a snack or drink before continuing up. 

Lukie Tower.

White girl can't jump.

Up, up we go.

View from the lower level.

Taking a brief rest before continuing the ascent to the top. (And my oh my, so handsome. :))

At the very top, we posed for pictures, shared a (pricey) champagne toast to 3 amazing years of marriage and enjoyed the romantic view of the city.  

Cheers to 3 years!

And many more to come!

After thoroughly enjoying our visit to the Eiffel Tower, we strolled back towards the hotel, stopped for a light dinner where I had a pretty nasty bowl of fish soup, which was basically fishy broth with no signs of actual fish except the (opposite of appetizing) smell, and called it a night. The next morning, we woke ready to make good use of our Paris Pass and Rick Steve's Guide to Paris! The famous Louvre museum, Notre Dame and more to come soon!

Alicante. Alicante. Ali-ali-cante.

After two hellish weeks at work for Luke, last weekend we packed up and took a train to the South of Spain stopping in the town of Alicante, where we planned to relax, lay on the beach and catch up on sleep. Under those terms, I'd say the trip was a major success!

It took us about 4.5 hours to get to Alicante from Madrid. Although there are higher speed trains that get you there in about 3 hours, they had already filled up by the time we were ready to book. We got in around 9:15 on Friday night, checked into our hotel and then went out for tapas. We had some amazing tapas at a place called Kategori that we just happened upon. A tosta with bacalao, which is a white fish, and a stuffed zuchinni. I'm not exactly sure what it was stuffed with, but it was tasty. After that, we found a spot to watch some of the opening ceremony of the 2012 Olympics and then called it a pretty early night so that we'd be up and ready to go early in the morning. (Unfortunately, I didn't manage to take even one worthwhile picture this night. Fail.)

Saturday morning we walked right across the street to a huge mercado. Although this guy looked pretty  appetizing

  

as did a few of his smaller friends,

Luke and I opted for fruit, tomato, cheese, pan and pistachios for our beachy snacks.  After grabbing those few things at the market, we took a train over to a beach called Playa de San Juan. There is a beach right in the heart of Alicante that we could have walked to; however, one of Luke's co-workers recommended that we check out San Juan because it's a little bigger, prettier and less touristy. Once we made our way to the beach, we staked out our spots for the day and got busy with a bunch of reading, swimming, snorkeling, people watching, pistachio shelling and cat napping. It was perfect (except for the part where I ate 2 kg of nuts. :))

When we were certain that we'd more than surpassed our Vitamin D allowance for the day, we sipped on one beachy drink (mojito for her/pina colada for him) and headed back to the town of Alicante.

After changing out of our sandy suits, we went off to explore the old town, hoping to find an antique store or two. Unfortunately, the only one we saw appeared to be closed down and most of the stores were closed anyway (silly siestas!) so we went back to the hotel to shower and get ready for a dinner out. We happened upon a nice terraza in the middle of a small plaza where we shared a bottle of white wine, calamari, grilled veggies and a seafood paella. It was all delicious!

Luckily, we booked an early evening train on Sunday so we had the majority of the day before heading back to Madrid. In the morning, we hiked up to Castillo de Santa Barbara, which is an old castle in the center of old town Alicante, and because it stands up on a small mountain, there are great views of the town and the Mediterranean.  After that, we got in a couple last hours of more sun and beach before hightailing it back to the train station.  

Although we weren't super impressed with the town of Alicante, we loved the beach and got all we needed out of this weekend get-a-way, including the restoration of my tan which was all but gone (minus the prominent sports bra lines on my back) and some much needed rejuvenation for the hubby.