We took the red eye out of Dulles, VA the day after our wedding. The flight was nice, albeit slightly boring, and very bright. I have to admit I was mildly entertained by the interactive map for the duration of our flight. Hey it was my first time going that far!! We landed in Paris, France around 8am thinking this would maximize our honeymoon experience. Sleep on the plane and then awake in a new country fresh and ready to explore with newlywed eyes! Sounds great right?! Except my eyes were still on VA time. I felt like I was sleeping on my feet! Puts a new meaning to "like a dream". We managed to find our hotel, explore the street for a bit and then i promptly passed out. I recovered from my jet lag, Matt never faltered and we decided to go see the Louvre!
Here are some pictures from our hotel room - Hotel Lotti, and the Louvre:
Hotel Lotti was beautiful and an adventure in itself. Matt and I spend a good bit of time trying to figure out what the light switches went to (still a mystery) and how to work the AC ( which we quickly concluded that Paris cold and Virginia cold are two very different things). The windows in our room opened to the street life below. It was beautiful in the evening. Nightlife never stops in Paris! The ceilings were works of art. I think Matt's most distinct memory is of ordering breakfast in bed and expecting a huge spread only to find that breakfast in Paris is an assortment of breads, jams and AWESOME coffee. I don't think he has taken an American breakfast for granted since!
The Louvre was magnificently grand! The day we went was a bit rainy so we didn't feel guilty in the least for spending the day there. The entrance itself was overwhelming. You walked through a glass pyramid and down a flight of stairs that opened up to the biggest museum I've ever seen. We would get through one amazing collection just to stumble upon another and another. We spent so much time there and didn't get to see everything. Our favorite collection was Napoleon's Apartments. Unbelievable.
We spent about 4 nights in Paris. While we were there we had to try the famous pastries I've heard about for 3 years in my French classes. There was a cute pastry shop down the street from our hotel that we decided to check out. We were not disappointed. I have no words to describe it.
We were able to take a long stroll to go see the Eiffel Tower and went up to the second level. The elevator went up at an angle instead of straight. I was all about going straight to the top...until we got to the 2nd level. It is alot taller than you think! I'll admit I chickened out and decided the 2nd level was high enough. For the record, the 2nd level is not the 2nd story! After taking in the view we decided to take the stairs down instead of waiting for the elevator.....That was a bad idea! The stairs are just metal casing that you can see through down to the bottom. Scary stuff! We also walked to the famous Arc de Triumph though we didn't actually go up to it. By that time both Matt and I were pretty weary of Paris traffic and traffic circles!
Here are some pictures of our adventures to and from the Tower and the Arc. And a picture of the pastries before we dug in!
No trip to Paris would be complete without a visit to Notre Dame! The detail put into the church was amazing. To imagine someone putting in so much time and effort to each little detail is very humbling. It was unbelievable how old it was and how much history is contains. It was also striking how dark it was inside. We also visited the prison that held Marie Antoinette. Matt and I both agree that the history we learned in school hit home when we visited such historic sites.
Here are the pictures of Notre Dame and the prison as well as a few night shots from our hotel room:
And that ended the Paris, France portion of our Honeymoon. We took our cab and headed to the airport to catch our flight. Next stop....Barcelona, Spain!
