Paris

We traveled to Paris, France for the weekend of 19 October with Kate and Shaun. Getting from the Charles de Gaulle airport to our hotel Friday night turned out to be quite an adventure. Paris transit employees went on strike on Thursday, protesting a proposed cut in retirement packages. This meant that the metro wasn't running. Additionally, Paris hosted the World Rugby Championships over the weekend. Since the metro wasn't running, and there were at least 60,000 extra people in Paris, the taxi line at the airport was at least 1.5 hours long. So after a 1.5 hour bus ride, we ended up at the Arc d'Triomphe. From there, we caught a taxi to get to the hotel. At this point, we started getting excited to be in Paris and getting closer to our hotel and eating dinner...until the route was overtaken by some hundred roller bladers. That's right, hundreds of roller bladers apparently wind their way through Paris every Friday night between 10:00pm Friday and 1:00 am Saturday!

After starting the day off with delectable French pastries, we spent Saturday morning touring Notre Dame de Paris. In addition to touring the inside of the cathedral, we climbed a few hundred steps to the top of the cathedral to view the Paris skyline as well as see the gargoyles up close! Afterward, we found a boulangerie for a coffee break and croissant snack, and then walked throught La Sainte-Chapelle. The walls of the upper chapel are almost all stained glass and depict the story of the bible. After lunch, we headed into the Louvre where we hit the highlights, the Mona Lisa, the Venus de Milo, and the Code of Hammurabi. We all agreed that we are now officially cultured! Saturday night, we met up with friends of Kate and Shaun for dinner at L'estrapade near the Panthéon for a French meal. Carrie's meal consisted of prune soup, roasted quail with grapes, and chocolate mint crème brûlée. Kurt started with whole sardines, moved on to a cut of beef and finished with 'chocolat du suicide.'

Sunday we climbed to the top of the Arc d'Triomphe and then made our way to the Eiffel tower. Since the lines were long, we didn't go up to the top but did touch the base so that we can say we were really there! We then walked to the Musée d'Orsay where we saw several paintings by Van Gogh, Renoir, Monet, and Degas. Luckily, we decided to leave early for the airport because it ended up taking almost 4 hours to get there! Due to the strike, a few of the metro trains weren't running and the trip took longer than normal. That and the fact that the train we took, which normally does go to the airport, turned around about half way there taking us back to where we started. But in the end, we did get to the airport and on our plane...so all's well that ends well!

We had a great time in Paris and are looking forward to going back to see more sights that we didn't have time to see!

Click below to see some of our pictures from the weekend.

Paris