We started off the day in our hostel eating their free breakfast which consisted of a french baguette and Nutella or butter and something to drink. We sat by the window which overlooks the Seine and there is a drawbridge right by it which lifts to allow boats through using this HUGE pully system. We talked about our plans for the day and knew we wanted to end up at the Louve that night, because, how many people would really be in a museum on a Friday night?
We ventured out and hopped on the Metro to head to the Louve area - we knew this was a large area for snapping pictures of royal palaces, government buildings, and plenty of statues. We first stopped at the tourist information center, which we smartly ordered museum and metro passes for our stay here, which allows us access our entire trip, and picked them up along with some brochures in English. Next we we got something to eat of course, we found a cheap bistro on the corner and Lauren settled on Croque Madame and I got mozarella and tomato on wheat bread with a salad - it was better than you may think. We also got a medium sized wine which we weren't sure about, but turns out they were in like beer glasses - we'll try and post a picture. Also, if you ask for water here they'll bring you bottled which you have to pay for - not like the US where water is automatically not charged unlimited - however, we found out that if you ask for carafe d'eau, they bring you that free jug of water - which for us was held in a bottle resembling Crowl Royal. After lunch we walked by the Louve and just started walking.
A good portion of Paris around this area is dirt paths so we ventured down to the path right on the Seine. Throughout Paris, and really all of Europe that we've traveled, we've noticed people generally dress well - especially the men. Scarves are a mainstay - men with their shirts tucked in. Everyone looks older here and more put together. In Lauren's words, you are either a teenager or a professional, there doesn't appear to be a lot of in between. However, in Paris, A LOT of people smoke - ugh.
Continuing to walk, we went across this one bridge which had a bunch of locks on it - it was composed of many wires on the sides. We got closer and noticed poeple had their names written on them with dates. So we determined that when people get married, or they are deeply committed to someone - or love someone, even a relative that has passed or are dedicated to (someone has a soccer ball on the lock) basically something with a strong bond, they come up here lock into the bridge and toss the key into the river. I thought this was so unique and fascinating - so we realized we have a lock we're not using, so we're gonna put one on to join in on the fun. Hopefully we can post pics of this because it was my favorite discovery of the day.
We walked more past famous bridges, palaces, museums, boats, etc. and found the Eiffel Tower! You can see it from a distance. We didn't want to tour it just yet - but it is a pretty site from the around where we walked. We went to see if there was this dinner cruise we wanted to take, but the boat wasn't there yet and the office building signs were pointing us in the wrong direction. So instead, we kept waking , lol. At this point we're up to 5 km (3 mi). We found Lady Liberty! Yes, France made a larger replica of this and gave it to us - she is very small here. So we took some shots on a bridge and were able to encorporate both the Eiffel and Lady Liberty in the background.
Second best find of the day: AVENUE KLEBER! (For those of you who don't know me - it's my last name lol) We saw it on the map right by the Arc de Triomphe - so we took a Metro from there to go see it. So funny - my name is German and French I guess - naturally I took some photos by different signs of it - couldn't pass it up.
Side note: the metro stations here are really nice, clean, and don't smell! They actually have maps at almost every entrance, and even when you're in the tunnels - and have electronic signs that tell you a countdown to when you're train is arriving - NYC needs to step their game up and take a note from the French. At least clean it up - and some more signs would do wonders. I hear the MTA is trying though, so I can't get too upset - but still this was one this I noticed big time.
We exited my Metro station and saw the Arc - it is a huge monument erected in 1806 to commemorate the victories of Napolean, but wasn't completed until 1836 because of his losses. It is now a large roundabout for most cars and bikes (oh yes, there are less bikes here than Holland and Nice - many many more cars.) We took some photos from the outside and to get to the Arc itself you have to walk underground because of all the traffic. Because of our sweet Museum passes, it allowed us to go into the Arc itself. Now the elevators and lifts were out of commission for the day so we hiked 284 steps - all of them. Now that may not seem like a lot but in a small spiral staircase where there is little ventilation and we didn't stop once - consider it a great workout. Inside there is of course a gift shop, TVs to view information about the Arc, some statues, etc, but we went straight to the lookout point. Wow, what a view of Paris! You can just see for miles all the houses and building, and it really is so busy. Their avenues look so pretty adorned with trees and your not high enough to not see people like the Empire State Building, this was just high enough to see the landscape but low enough to see people, cars, and such. Such a great view! We took video ;) I also liked this because you can see the Eiffel tower, comparable to NY where I like the Top of the Rock(afellar) center because you can see the Empire State Building. Paris is a lot of white and grey houses and buildings from atop.
We came down and went back to our walking. We of course ended up somewhere we didn't really expect - but Lauren found a post office to send some postcards and we navigated the electronic postal service without any help! Other than the English translations lol. We did realize though that the English translations in Paris are for the English - not Americans. We were in search of food and decided to head back to the Louve area since that is where we wanted to go later. Little did we know we had just walked though what we nicknamed the Upper East Side because of it's expense. We were in the Trocadero Passy section.
Side note: Paris is broken down into sections/districts, much like NY, but with prettier names. For example, the Champs-Elysees is by the Arc and is more luxury shopping, the Bastille is known for bistros and bars, Les Halles is where the Louve is near, etc. We'll try and post a map.
From here we hopped the Metro (again, so easy to navigate), and went to the Louve. Now Lauren and I aren't big museum people, but we had to go here. We only spent 2 hours, and walked though 3 sections pretty easily. We didn't stare at too many things. Expect the Mona Lisa. She is kept in a glass case, and is smaller than I thought, maybe 2 feet by 3 feet. But her colors were more vivid than I anticipated. And depite not being allowed to use flash, so many people did. Lauren thought it wasn't even the real thing, because of how much damage light does to artwork, and how many cameras were being used with flash, there is no way they would have her on display. Even still, it was a site to see and I got my non-flash camera to snap a few shots :) We toured aroud some more, saw Hamurabi's code, ancient greek statues, tons of paintings. There really is SO much in there, it was almost hard to process, especially if you don't know much about art (like me). The pottery and ancient hieroglyphics and sculptures were really interesting to see though. It is just mind-boggling to think how old they are and how the people who made these didn't have the resources we do today and still produced these beautiful bodies of work.
After the Louve we headed back to our Hostel and ran into this one kid from UNC-Greensboro coming out of the subway. He was studing abroad in Germany and just came down to Paris for the weekend and was staying at our hostel as well. He didn't know where it was so he followed us to it and we parted ways. Small world.
We were hungry of course, and wanted something easy. Pizza. Haha. A few streets down, we found this italian place, walked by to see if they were open and the owner and a waiter were waving us in, that they were still open. Now I know we said we didn't go to Italy and didn't get Italian pizza, well this WAS italian pizza. AMAZING. Thin crust like I've never had before and hand-prepared by the owner himself, who was born in Italy and moved to France. We has Tiramisu and Creme Brulee - and wow, ta die for. So incredible. Great food, great price, we told them we'd be back tomorrow.
We retired for the night and headed to bed- more adventure to come! STAY TUNED!
Love,
Julie and Lauren
A good portion of Paris around this area is dirt paths so we ventured down to the path right on the Seine. Throughout Paris, and really all of Europe that we've traveled, we've noticed people generally dress well - especially the men. Scarves are a mainstay - men with their shirts tucked in. Everyone looks older here and more put together. In Lauren's words, you are either a teenager or a professional, there doesn't appear to be a lot of in between. However, in Paris, A LOT of people smoke - ugh.
Continuing to walk, we went across this one bridge which had a bunch of locks on it - it was composed of many wires on the sides. We got closer and noticed poeple had their names written on them with dates. So we determined that when people get married, or they are deeply committed to someone - or love someone, even a relative that has passed or are dedicated to (someone has a soccer ball on the lock) basically something with a strong bond, they come up here lock into the bridge and toss the key into the river. I thought this was so unique and fascinating - so we realized we have a lock we're not using, so we're gonna put one on to join in on the fun. Hopefully we can post pics of this because it was my favorite discovery of the day.
We walked more past famous bridges, palaces, museums, boats, etc. and found the Eiffel Tower! You can see it from a distance. We didn't want to tour it just yet - but it is a pretty site from the around where we walked. We went to see if there was this dinner cruise we wanted to take, but the boat wasn't there yet and the office building signs were pointing us in the wrong direction. So instead, we kept waking , lol. At this point we're up to 5 km (3 mi). We found Lady Liberty! Yes, France made a larger replica of this and gave it to us - she is very small here. So we took some shots on a bridge and were able to encorporate both the Eiffel and Lady Liberty in the background.
Second best find of the day: AVENUE KLEBER! (For those of you who don't know me - it's my last name lol) We saw it on the map right by the Arc de Triomphe - so we took a Metro from there to go see it. So funny - my name is German and French I guess - naturally I took some photos by different signs of it - couldn't pass it up.
Side note: the metro stations here are really nice, clean, and don't smell! They actually have maps at almost every entrance, and even when you're in the tunnels - and have electronic signs that tell you a countdown to when you're train is arriving - NYC needs to step their game up and take a note from the French. At least clean it up - and some more signs would do wonders. I hear the MTA is trying though, so I can't get too upset - but still this was one this I noticed big time.
We exited my Metro station and saw the Arc - it is a huge monument erected in 1806 to commemorate the victories of Napolean, but wasn't completed until 1836 because of his losses. It is now a large roundabout for most cars and bikes (oh yes, there are less bikes here than Holland and Nice - many many more cars.) We took some photos from the outside and to get to the Arc itself you have to walk underground because of all the traffic. Because of our sweet Museum passes, it allowed us to go into the Arc itself. Now the elevators and lifts were out of commission for the day so we hiked 284 steps - all of them. Now that may not seem like a lot but in a small spiral staircase where there is little ventilation and we didn't stop once - consider it a great workout. Inside there is of course a gift shop, TVs to view information about the Arc, some statues, etc, but we went straight to the lookout point. Wow, what a view of Paris! You can just see for miles all the houses and building, and it really is so busy. Their avenues look so pretty adorned with trees and your not high enough to not see people like the Empire State Building, this was just high enough to see the landscape but low enough to see people, cars, and such. Such a great view! We took video ;) I also liked this because you can see the Eiffel tower, comparable to NY where I like the Top of the Rock(afellar) center because you can see the Empire State Building. Paris is a lot of white and grey houses and buildings from atop.
We came down and went back to our walking. We of course ended up somewhere we didn't really expect - but Lauren found a post office to send some postcards and we navigated the electronic postal service without any help! Other than the English translations lol. We did realize though that the English translations in Paris are for the English - not Americans. We were in search of food and decided to head back to the Louve area since that is where we wanted to go later. Little did we know we had just walked though what we nicknamed the Upper East Side because of it's expense. We were in the Trocadero Passy section.
Side note: Paris is broken down into sections/districts, much like NY, but with prettier names. For example, the Champs-Elysees is by the Arc and is more luxury shopping, the Bastille is known for bistros and bars, Les Halles is where the Louve is near, etc. We'll try and post a map.
From here we hopped the Metro (again, so easy to navigate), and went to the Louve. Now Lauren and I aren't big museum people, but we had to go here. We only spent 2 hours, and walked though 3 sections pretty easily. We didn't stare at too many things. Expect the Mona Lisa. She is kept in a glass case, and is smaller than I thought, maybe 2 feet by 3 feet. But her colors were more vivid than I anticipated. And depite not being allowed to use flash, so many people did. Lauren thought it wasn't even the real thing, because of how much damage light does to artwork, and how many cameras were being used with flash, there is no way they would have her on display. Even still, it was a site to see and I got my non-flash camera to snap a few shots :) We toured aroud some more, saw Hamurabi's code, ancient greek statues, tons of paintings. There really is SO much in there, it was almost hard to process, especially if you don't know much about art (like me). The pottery and ancient hieroglyphics and sculptures were really interesting to see though. It is just mind-boggling to think how old they are and how the people who made these didn't have the resources we do today and still produced these beautiful bodies of work.
After the Louve we headed back to our Hostel and ran into this one kid from UNC-Greensboro coming out of the subway. He was studing abroad in Germany and just came down to Paris for the weekend and was staying at our hostel as well. He didn't know where it was so he followed us to it and we parted ways. Small world.
We were hungry of course, and wanted something easy. Pizza. Haha. A few streets down, we found this italian place, walked by to see if they were open and the owner and a waiter were waving us in, that they were still open. Now I know we said we didn't go to Italy and didn't get Italian pizza, well this WAS italian pizza. AMAZING. Thin crust like I've never had before and hand-prepared by the owner himself, who was born in Italy and moved to France. We has Tiramisu and Creme Brulee - and wow, ta die for. So incredible. Great food, great price, we told them we'd be back tomorrow.
We retired for the night and headed to bed- more adventure to come! STAY TUNED!
Love,
Julie and Lauren
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