France

9/17 – Day 19: Travel Day

Ok…I can’t really call this post Geneva, as we didn’t really see Geneva, except for the airport and our airBnB… which i guess actually wasn’t even in Geneva – but in a small border town in France called Prevessin-Moens.

Originally, we were going to spend the last 1-2 days in Geneva before flying off to Paris, but decided to just spend our last days in Venice instead…So today was just a travel day!

We woke up early to take a couple trains from Venice to Milan. Then we went out to Mel’s mom’s area, where Mel treated us to another lunch as Desiderio’s. We had a full course lunch here which made our taste buds happy and kept our stomachs nice and full for the rest of our trip. I had gnocchi, an arugula and prosciutto salad, and French fries. Norina – ziti in a ragu sauce, salmon, and French fries. Oh, and we each got a glass+ of wine… all for only $8 each!

Then we got our big bag from upstairs, plus a very thoughtful parting gift/souvenir from them!

From here, we took a few trains (and a few hours) to finally get into Geneva at 9:30 and settled into our airBnB.

We were able to get some nice views of the alps along the way though, reminding us what we had left behind for the past week-plus. We’ll need to finish off what we started at some point in the future!

9/18 – Day 20: Paris

Today, we set out to the final city of our tour of Europe, Paris. We left our airBnB early to make sure we could get to the airport on time, and that we got through everything just fine there, and thankfully, no issues. The flight was a short one, lasting just over an hour – but the train ride from the airport to the hotel was probably just as long. (We decided to cap off our trip by staying in a nice hotel room instead)

After we got all settled in, we headed back out into the city center to walk around the city. We started off at the Norte Dame. I didn’t expect to be here for too long since we couldn’t get in, by we actually spent quite a bit of time here, walking around the city blocks to see the outside from all angles, and to see what kind of damage the fire had done, and the work being done to keep it in tact. At this point, they haven’t started the restoration process, as they are still debating what kind of architectural style to restore it in. It was a bit sad to see it in the shape it was – but I had actually expected to see much worse.

After this, we walked down along the Seine river for a bit, and then eventually made our way out to the Louvre. We weren’t planning on going in – just wanted to see the pyramids, and get a sense of what time we would need to go the next morning to not sit in too long of lines.

After we were done posing for pictures, we went to the Printemps Shopping Mall, to check out the view from their rooftop. It was pretty awesome…especially for being able to go up there for free! Nice view of the city and the Eiffel Tower from up there.

Getting hungry now, we decided to look for dinner. We found a well-reviewed Lebanese place nearby, so decided to try that out. Glad that we did, because it was both plentiful and delicious!!

We were both full now, so decided to walk it off and make our way over to Trocadéro Square to get a view of the Eiffel Tower. The view from here was absolutely stunning! And some guy was singing and playing the guitar there as well, which made for a nice evening atmosphere. The only thing that was slightly annoying were all of the guys walking around trying to sell souvenirs, lights, and wine. We wound up staying for probably 45 minutes, so that we could catch the light show at 10. Definitely a great way to spend our first evening in the City of Love and Lights!

9/19 – Day 21: Louvre

This morning, we woke up early to get into the Louvre before the crowds amassed to see the Mona Lisa and other works of art in here for a few hours. We thankfully didn’t have to wait in the security or ticket lines for too long, but the Mona Lisa line had already started forming – but nothing like it would just an hour later than when we finished. We probably only stayed in this line for about a half hour. And it was nice, because we were able to see other large paintings and works of Da Vinci along the way.

The Mona Lisa itself was pretty underwhelming. It’s super small…especially against all of his other works…so it’s not only hard to see, but they then only let so many people get up close to it at a time..but even then, if you’re not up front, it’s kind of tough to get a good luck. Good for us though, we timed our spot in line just right, so that we were the first 2 in a group, and from to see her up front and center.

After Mona Lisa, we just roamed around the absolutely massive museum – getting lost and turned around pretty much the whole time. I won’t go into details of everything we saw…but I would say the highlights were the various sculptures (French, Old Roman, and mythological Greek – including Nike), ancient Egyptian items, and huge French paintings. We tried to take some fun pictures with some of the items when we could as well!

Well, we wound up staying in the Louvre until closing time at 6, so we were there for almost 8 hours! After a few more Louvre pictures outside, we decided to find some dinner.

We decided on a place where we could get as much French dishes as possible…and found a corner cafe where we ordered escargot, onion soup, beef Bourginon, and creme brûlée! Everything was delicious, but the beef probably won for the top dish of the night!

It was starting to get pretty chilly out, and we were eating outside, so we decided to call it a night and head back to the hotel so that we could get an early start the next morning.

9/20 – Day 22: Eiffel Tower

Today marks the last day of our big trip. We woke up early again to get some pictures of the tower with as few people as possible. Although there wound up being a fence around a grassy field where we could’ve gotten some nice ones, we were able to still get some pretty good ones using our tripod and a lime scooter to use stick it on. Did the best with what we were given!

From here, we made our way to the ticket line of the tower – thankfully, we probably only had to wait for about a half hour or so – so not too bad! We wound up walking up the 669 stairs up to the 1st and 2nd levels of the tower. Each level gave us some really nice views of the city!

To get to the top though, we needed to take the elevator. Way back in the day, a spiral staircase was the only way to get up there – which would’ve been about another 1100 steps up… but instead we took the 30 second lift up! The views from up here were, as you would expect, even better as you could really see out across Paris. Eiffel apparently also created a little apartment for himself up there, which they staged with a couple scenes including his daughter and Thomas Edison. It was super crowded up here at the top though, so getting in pictures with the both of us was really difficult. I wish they only did timed entry up to the summit so we weren’t all so crammed up there…but oh well…still a great experience!

After we had enough of the views, we made our way back down (taking the elevator all the way this time)…took a couple more tower shots before saying goodbye for the day!

Now it was time to find some crepes – not too hard as their pretty much everywhere, so we settled on just getting some at a street vendor. Got a Nutella one and a ham and cheese one…both were definitely tasty in their own ways!

After our bellies were good and full, we walked over to the Arc de Triumph. It stands in the middle of a large traffic circle which has 12 different streets feeding into it. It’s crazy! Maybe even crazier though, is that I didn’t think there was any way to get into the middle except to run/walk across traffic, so I convinced Norina to do so. It was pretty sketchy going across…probably 4-5 ‘lanes’ of cars, but we made it without too much difficulty. The arc itself is pretty neat, with various carvings depicting France’s most important victories of battle. In the center, we then saw that there is an underground passageway that lets us across – that was a nice safe and simple way to do it…. and then from across the street, we were able to get some good shots of of us with the arc.

After the arc, we decided to make the long walk across the city to see the Tuileries Garden and another museum which came with the Louvre ticket. It was getting fog pretty hot out now though, and we were dressed more for the cold winds up the tower. We tried to stay in the shade as much as we could, and at the garden, relaxed quite a bit under the trees to rest our bodies and feet. We rested for quite some time, so we wound up missing the museum as it closed, but it was just one person’s paintings and house…so I don’t think we wound up missing much there. The garden was pretty nice, and actually was inspired by the Boboli gardens that we saw in Florence. Thankfully, these gardens actually had flowers this time of year!

Well rested now, we made our way out to find some dinner. We wanted to try a couple more French dishes, and decided to look for a place with ratatouille. We wound up finding a corner cafe that served it, but it wasn’t served how we were really expecting. It was as a salad, so served cold…like it was cooked, and then put into a fridge overnight. We could tell the flavor and taste was good…but it could’ve been so much better if served hot we think. In addition, we also ordered the duck confit with French fries. The duck was a tad on the smaller side And some pieces a little dry. Again, tasty, but could’ve been better for sure. The fries were plentiful and good though!

So after our mediocre dinner, we decided to head back to the Eiffel Tower one last time to end our trip. It wound up being the perfect end to our trip…as we sat out of a long grass field in front of the tower, and watched as the sky slowly turned dark behind the towering Eiffel. It was a beautiful night, and enjoyed it with a bottle of rose that one of the street sellers was walking around selling. It was again, mediocre at best, just after a cup, it started to get a little better and warmed our bodies up. Anyways, could not have ended our trip in a better way!