Wander-ling: Paris, Day 2-5

  Hello, friends! Here is another installment of my "Wanderling" series. This post is going to be about the rest of my trip in France. I am really behind, and I'm sorry. Hopefully you will be seeing some more posts soon!

Day 2: July 7

  This morning, we got breakfast at a local pastry shop near our hotel. I got a cappuccino and a flaky almond pastry,  that was to die for. I think it's called "Triangle Amande". My family and I ate breakfast on the steps of the Pantheon, accompanied by our pigeon "friend". After breakfast, we went back to Notre Dame to commence on our tour of Paris. Luckily, it wasn't raining. It was gorgeous out. 
  Our tour guide was basically awesome. She's from Holland, but had a really cool accent with a Australian-Irish blend. She made the tour really fun with her upbeat personality and sense of humor, and showed us some really cool sites in Paris. We toured historic sites as well as some under the radar places that she knows about. Our guide also show

ed us a church that was hit by a bomb fired from the revolution that inspired Les Miserables! The biking, however, was very difficult. We had to dodge people on the streets, cars, and the typical traffic of Paris. I think we biked about six miles that day, but I loved every bit of it!

  After the tour, we went to the Eiffel Tower, where my family and I took pictures and I attempted to help a couple get a picture of themselves. I couldn't work the camera very well and I think they though I was stupid, but that's okay! They got their picture! The tower itself was gorgeous and huge! I felt really blessed to be able to see it. 
  Later, we went on a boat tour along the Seine river, where we got to see some Parisian sites, nautically. It was fun, but at that point, it was really cold. The weather took a turn for the worst on us, but I got some really good pictures! When that was done, my family and I went out to dinner at a fancy French restaurant. The food was amazing. I got duck with this delectable honey sauce draped over it, complemented by mashed potatoes. For dessert: creme brûlée. It was the first time I've tried it, and it was delicious. This fantastic dinner concluded this day.


Day 3: July 8

  For those of you wanting to know what we had for breakfast, I shall have you know that we had hot chocolate and baguettes. Woo! Day three was museum day, so we took the metro down to Muse D'orsay, an art museum. We got to see some amazing impressionist art, which is some of my favorite. Among the works that we saw included paintings by Manet, Monet, and Degas. Monet is my favorite. 
  After touring Muse D'orsay, we walked down the long road to Arc de Triumph. On the way over there, we stopped and got a pigeon infested lunch and went inside the most beautiful Sephora I'd ever seen. It was huge! Equipped with a red carpet and a car, it was definitely a beauty lover's dream! Anyways! Back to Arc de Triumph, we did make it there and it was quite beautiful. It was really big, with people crowding around it, but I'm happy that I got to see it.
  We said our goodbyes to the Arc de Triumph and made our way down to the Louvre. Unfortunately, the Louvre is closed on Tuesdays, so we didn't get to see it. We did, however, go up to this huge ferris wheel! Sorry to be a Debbie Downer, but the ferris wheel was a disappointment too. It was run by a bunch of greasy, grimy guys who charged us 10 euros a person to take a five minute ride. Lessons learned: the Louvre is closed and Tuesdays and the ferris wheel is a rip off.
  Our day concluded with going to a Chinese place close to our hotel for dinner.


Day 4: July 9

  This morning, we got pastries (Almond croissant) for breakfast and ate it outside Notre Dame. We love that place. It's gorgeous. Seeing that it wasn't insanely crowded at all, we went inside and wandered about the cathedral. It's so much more breathtaking when your breath isn't being taken away by the lack of air due to overcrowdedness. Notre Dame is definitely something to be seen. 

  After visiting Notre Dame, we met up with our tour group for yet another bike tour! My family loves bike tours. Our tour guide's name was Angelica and she was about the most adorable chick I've ever seen. She's this tiny little pixie of a person from Sweden and she was so sweet. She was to be our guide for...Versailles! So! We went with our tour group doooown to the city of Versailles and mounted our bikes to tour it. First, we got ingredients for our picnic that we were to have during the tour. Our group was allowed to go about town for a bit to get whatever picnic food we desired. My dad got us bread, sausage, and cheese. Before heading back on our bikes, my sister and I got some NUTELLA AND BANANA CREPES at a crepe stand. They were to die for.
  Our actual tour of Versailles was wet and cold, but really cool. The chateau (building) was huge and its surrounding gardens were very impressive. I'll let you take a look through the pictures I took of it. We also got to see Marie Antoinette's "farm" she had built as an escape from her royal life. It was kind of like her playground. The farm had bunnies. 





Day 5: July 10

  This was our last day in Paris before we set out to go to Rome! We woke up really early this morning to catch yet another tour! This was to a be a tour of the Eiffel tower in which we would go inside! Our tour guide was this Brazilian, curly haired, drummer (aka my ideal man) and he was really cool. He took us up into the tower and gave us the low down of how and why it was built and showed us some of the key places you could see from the top of the tower. The view was absolutely gorgeous! We had a good time in the Eiffel Tower, but we didn't make it up to the top. It was a very windy and cold day, so we figured that it wouldn't be such a travesty if we saved ourself some stress and went back down. Anyways! The Eiffel Tower tour was very fun. By the way, the Eiffel Tower gets repainted every seven years and this year, it's getting repainted! History is going to be made! Our guide told us that the color of this tower is to be determined by the people of Paris and their preferences are leaning toward a hot pink Eiffel Tower. Oh God.
 After the tour, we went back to the hotel to hang out. We didn't have anything to do for the rest of the day until we departed in the evening. In the mean time, we got some crepes, did a bit of souvenir shopping, and hung out in the hotel lobby. Once it was time to go, we packed up our bags and went to the train station. The train we were to be taking would first go to Milan, then we were to switch trains and head out to Rome. However the train to Milan was a night train! How exciting! Our room was quite small and had 3 pull down beds, but it wasn't bad at all. It was quite the experience. Anyways! This concludes our trip to Paris. I know I wrote it kind of randomly, but as I'm writing it, I'm recalling what I did a week ago, so it's kind of hard to remember what I did. I hope you enjoyed this post and I will talk to you later! 



-Love Ling

(PS: The bike tours we did on this trip were through "About Bike" in Paris, so if you're planning on taking a trip there, I seriously recommend booking a bike tour through them. They were awesome!)