Paris

Paris

"The City of Lights"

Paris gained this nickname as one of the first cities to have electricity.
This trip got added to our travel list as Rob's 40th Birthday present to me, and is a place I always dreamed of visiting.

Day 1 - Saturday (Travel Day / Eiffel Tower Day)

We started our trip out of DCA on an overnight red eye to Paris.  We got to Paris early enough in the day so we started off with Nap 1 before starting our day.

Our funky and very Parisian AirBnb

 

Our Airbnb was in walking distance to the Eiffel Tower which was our first mission for Paris

Following our Eiffel Tower Tour we went on a bar crawl in the Oberkampf neighborhood.  This ended up being our favorite neighborhood.  There was a wide variety of bars and music venues and restaurants that allowed us to pick our own adventure.

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Day 2 - Sunday (Explore the City Day)

We wanted to get our bearings early in the trip, so we booked a bicycle tour of the city that took us through the Marais neighborhood and Ile de la Cite, which is the small island in the middle of the city where Notre Dame is located.

The closest view we could get of Notre Dame since it caught fire last year

The tiled star that you see on the street corner is called a Space Invader.  There are different space invaders all over the city that people search for like a game.   We found as many as we could.

Two things among many that we could not resist, Cheese and Macaroons

Insert Mid Day Nap #2 - This became our routine.  We did a morning activity everyday, made our way back to the Airbnb for a nap and then started a second round in the evening to enjoy Paris nights.

Following our mid-day nap we went out to a Wine and Cheese Cave to enjoy an amazing wine and cheese pairing event.  We were able to meet some great and interesting people on this activity including a Reuter's journalist who had just published an article that morning.

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Day 3 - Monday (Moulin Rouge & Louvre Day)

We started our day at the stunning and iconic Louvre museum.  Some interesting facts about this museum:

• It used to be the King's Palace
• 15,000 visitors per day
• If you walked through the entire museum and looked at every item for 30 sec, it would take you 100 days to see everything (with no sleep breaks)
• At any given time, the museum never has more than 20% of the entire collection on display

Our Favorites

 

The Winged Victory of Samothrace, also called the Nike of Samothrace, is a marble Hellenistic sculpture of Nike (the Greek goddess of victory)

This was the closest anyone could get to Mona Lisa.  It's one of the few pieces that has its own dedicated room.  She is basically a rockstar.

Great Sphinx of Tanis

We had to take a hike to a remote part of the museum far from the crowds and the main thoroughfare where they tucked away the African, Asian and Middle Eastern art.   This Easter Island Moai was one of the finds in this section of museum.

There is an entire wing dedicated to preserving and displaying Napoleon's living quarters.  This was his dining room.  The entire wing was on another level.

After our museum tour we had a cafe lunch in the Jardin Tuilleries which is an expansive garden that runs about 4-5 large city blocks in front of the Louvre entrance

Insert Mid-Day Nap #3

We wrapped our day at the museum with a night out at the world famous Moulin Rouge.  We wanted to do it for the experience of it.  The food was mediocre and the can-can show was pretty cheesy.  However, the acts in between the show were amazing.   We were not expecting the amount of nudity that was on display but I guess as the premiere burlesque show we should not have been surprised.  We were seated with a lovely couple from Brazil, one of whom was a Brazilian country music star.

Only inside pic before I learned no photos were allowed

 

Following the show we finished the night exploring the neighborhood a bit before we ended up at Cafe de Luna for some amazing desserts and drinks

We quickly learned that the neighborhood around the Moulin Rouge is a little ummmm, shall we say risque.  Yes that is an Eiffel tower shaped D.

The dessert game is strong in Paris;  Nothing wrong with a little profiteroles (left) and chocolate/caramel crepe on the right paired with a nice bottle of wine

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Day 4 - Tuesday (Shopping Day)

Since our AirBnb was centrally located we were able to access a lot of the city either by walking, catching the bus, catching the subway or renting electric Lime scooters which were everywhere.

Shopping on the Champs Elysee strip

Entrance to the Abercrombie and Fitch Store

Hey Louis!

Arc de Triomphe
This world famous monument was inaugurated in 1836 by French King, Louis-Philippe in dedication to the French Revolution and Napoleonic wars.  Underneath it is the vault of the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier from World War I.   From this monument there are 12 avenues that radiate from it, one of which is the Champs Elysee.

After exploring the Arc de Triomphe we rented scooters and made our way to the San Martin canal for lunch

Insert Mid-Day Nap #4

After another lovely nap we got ready for dinner.  We had done so much walking by this point and had an early morning to look forward to the next day and that we decided to do dinner near our Airbnb.   After checking out a bunch of yelp reviews we managed to get a reservation at the 5 star Michelin rated restaurant Fontaine de Mars.  We were blown away by the entire meal and experience.

The dessert on the left is called a floating island (floating meringue) and the dessert on the right was a perfect chocolate mousse.

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Day 5 - Wednesday (Versailles Half Day Trip)

Day 5 was our first adventure outside of the city.   It started with an early morning trip to the Palace of Versailles.   The palace of Versailles became the King's palace after the Louvre.  We were able to book a great tour that include a bike ride around the grounds and Parisienne picnic lunch on the banks of the Palace canal

The Palace of Versailles is known to be the most opulent building ever built in the world.  To give a sense for how outrageous the Palace of Versailles is I have to give stats because the pictures won't do full justice.

• 700 Rooms
• 2000 Windows
• 1,250 Fireplaces
• 67 staircases
• 720,000 square feet (That's 450 times the size of our house)

That's just the palace. If you take into consideration the full grounds, the Palace of Versailles takes up quite a bit of space

• 3.166 square miles
• 11 times the size of Vatican City
• Multiple side homes on the property for all the King's Side Chicks
• A vacation home for the king at the other end of the property
• Estimated $2 Billion USD to build in today's dollars

Hall of Mirrors

Louis XIV aka the Sun King liked showing off his calves as a sign of his masculinity

This is the back yard.  It expands as far as the eye can see with a series of man made canals

The Kings vacation home at the other end of the property

Our picnic lunch on the grounds of Versailles

Different view of the palace from the canal on the property

Insert Mid-Day Nap #5 after the train ride back to Paris

Rob was able to get us a reservation for Chateaubriand, which was a unique restaurant offering only a 9 course tasting menu of Chef Iñaki Aizpitarte's unique daily creations

Following dinner we strolled the neighborhood of Oberkampf again (our favorite neighborhood) and discovered by chance a live music venue named L'ailmentation Generale with a great live music set and a good vibe

We then closed out the night once again at our favorite bar/cafe in Oberkamp: La Place Verte

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Day 6 - Thursday (Fun, Food and Culture)

We started this day casually with breakfast at a local cafe named Kozy to try their quiche and then grabbed a few lime scooters and made our way to Musee d'orsay to check out the collection.

We then walked down to the Seine for river side lunch

Insert Mid-Day Nap #6

We started our evening with dinner reservations at Le Souffle.  The menu was outstanding.  We could not contain our excitement.

We had the pleasure to check out another live show to support some friends that Rob attended K-12 with who are now living in Paris as working musicians

This night was wrapped up with more drinks on the Seine

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Day 7 - Friday (Shopping, Exploration and end of trip Turn UP)

We started this day with breakfast at a Creperie and then made our way to a new part of town to explore the Louis Vuitton museum, which has absolutely nothing to do with the LV fashion line, but is owned by the LV foundation to display works of art in a state of the art building that itself is a work of art

Outside of the LV museum is the Jardin de acclimation which is a very interactive park and great place to takes kids in the city

Before preparing to leave the next day I had to squeeze in a little more shopping, as I was on the hunt for items I could not easily find in the U.S.   So we made our way to the Galleries Lafayette which has every designer brand under the sun in a massive multiple city block layout

Finally the turn up.   Every year on the summer solstice the city of Paris is home to Fete de la Musique which is a massive music festival where musicians of all types (DJs, Rock Bands, Opera Singers, etc.) take over almost every corner of the city performing in public into the early hours of the morning

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Day 8 - Saturday (Trip Finale)

On our last day in Paris we kept it casual given our mid-day flight.  So we started with breakfast at a small cafe in Marais and as our final activity we walked over to tour Sainte-Chappelle since Notre Dame was inaccessible due to last years fire (coincidentally we booked this trip days before Notre Dame caught fire)

Sainte-Chappelle was once the site of the crown of thorns until it was transferred to Notre Dame.  One of the features of this church are the stained glass windows that each depict a scene in the Bible in chronological order from Genesis to the Crucifixion.