Month: October 2012

We started our morning at the Arc de Triomphe, and wandered our way down the fancy shopping street, through the touleries garden and into the Louvre.

Venus de Milo

Dude that made the beard popular. Beards are Nick’s favorite thing about vacation I think.

Nike of Samothrace

Mona Lisa

 

In preparation for our Paris trip we watched a few Paris movies, including Hunchback of Notre Dame. I think it made it a little more meaningful for Jonah to see Notre Dame and look for the gargoyles and Quasi Modo and his bells.

This is the only one of the rose windows in the Notre Dame has the original medieval glass in it.

We found one of Quasi’s friends up top.

This bell used to take 16 men to ring. Then they added a few pullies and it only took 8. Nowadays it’s all machine run, pretty amazing.

The climb to the bell tower was about 400 steps. The lady who we showed our tickets to asked me several times if I was sure I could/wanted to do it. I think she was worried I would go into labor. She seemed worried about Jonah too. But Jonah has proven after many bell tower climbs that he is the champion of the tiny winding staircase. We got to cut the line because of her concern for us though, she wanted us at the back of a wave of people being let in so she had us come to the front and hop in after the next group. Pregnancy does come with some perks.

The backside of Notre Dame (I like it better) and one of the many lock covered bridges. Don’t mind me looking huge…and the glasses I had to wear all week because of a terrible eye infection, good times.

Very famous bookstore that has supported many struggling authors (very famous authors but I can’t remember who) and still does. They have rooms they let struggling authors stay in above the shop for free. Nick is considering this his backup plan, lol.

Jonah with his head tied back (hey it’s better then letting it flop around!) in front of the Pantheon…originally meant to be a church but it became more a of a place to honor the heroes of France, lot’s of famous people buried in the crypt including Victor Hugo, Marie Curie, Voltaire. Also the place where the rotation of the earth was discovered by Leon Foucalt using his Foucalt pendulum which still hangs from the ceiling.

Jonah and I went to a cute little French marionette show in the Luxembourg gardens, sorry no pictures but it was fun.

We decided to take a little scenic cruise on the Seine that evening. Beautiful. A bit chilly though, especially for Nick who forgot to pack a jacket (don’t worry, we resolved that the next day). Most of the people around us this whole trip were wearing winter jackets. Between Nick’s warm blood and me being pregnant, we were in T-shirts most the time and we got a lot of looks.

Apparently if there is one palace to see in Europe, Versailles is the one. Good ole’ King Louis went a bit overboard. This palace is simply incredible. It was fun to see but then when you stop and think about it, it does make you a little sick. They said that the cost of building the palace was the GDP of France for one year. Why not spend all of your country’s money for a year making yourself the biggest possible estate? Makes sense right? I just loved the gardens, they were huuuuge and so beautiful.

The palace had it’s own chapel (below).

Nick and Jonah hanging out in the hall of mirrors where the treaty of Versailles was signed. These mirrors were a big deal back in the day, mirrors of that size were pricey, and this is a whole hallway of them.

There was some random modern art around the palace such as this high heel shoe made out of pots and lids.

Below is Marie Antoinette’s peasant house. She wanted an escape from the pressures of the palace so in the far corner of the GINORMOUS grounds of the palace they made her own little ideal peasant village complete with a working farm. This is her peasant house. Not so peasantly. Nick says I can have a house like this and my own peasant village if I plan to get beheaded.

 

Our last big trip before the baby. Paris. So lovely. Even at seven months pregnant and dragging around a toddler. Probably one of our favorite places so far. Everything was very expensive so in order to cut costs we used an apartment rental website (our second time doing this, the first being in Barcelona). For half the price of a cheap hotel room we got a decently located very small but fully equipped apartment that made us feel like true locals.

Luxembourg garden has a huge playground you can pay a few Euro to get into. Jonah, of course, loved it.

We headed straight for the iconic eiffel tower, our first day there. we were hoping to catch the sunset from the top but by the time we made it through all the long lines (buying tickets, riding one elevator, then another) it was dark. But still very beautiful views of the city.