Paris – Tour Day 3
“Hi Mona, I’m Kevin!” Our day started early, we had to be in the lobby, bags in hand, by 8:45am. We set our alarm for 7:30am, finally drug our tired bones out of bed at 8:05am and were downstairs in the lobby by 8:38am…plenty of time for breakfast! Kevin had the hotel pastries and I walked to the bakery down the street and bought 2 fresh pastries for the road. Mmm. We (miraculously) all made it the two blocks to the bus with our luggage in tow and were on our way to meet Mona shortly after 9am. Getting on and off of the bus is quite a site. All 28 of us follow our momma duck Colleen down the street with our luggage in tow, wheels rumbling the entire time. We are a parade of tourists! See, the tour bus is so big that it can’t fit down...
Read MoreParis Day 5 – Tour Day 2
Well, today started pretty early. Nic and I were talking last night that we are with group of morning people. They pretty much all have kids and have gone through that phase of your life when you HAVE to get up at 5am. We, have not. So, we were supposed to meet the group at 8:45. We wanted to be downstairs at 8:15 for breakfast. We were downstairs at 8:40 with 5 minutes to spare to eat breakfast. I know, I know, no one reading this is surprised. I needed Colleen to come bang on our door at 7:30 like Dad did when I was a kid; or like he did last month. So anyway, we made it downstairs in time to wolf down a croissant with a little bit of cheese and some orange juice before we headed to the Metro. Now, let me tell you, getting 29 people onto 1 metro train, at 9:00...
Read MoreLe Tour de France!
What a day today! Last night I pulled out the laptop to see what else Paris had to offer that we might be missing and, voila! I found an awesome “grass roots” bike tour company run by an American and a Kiwi who have lived in Paris for well over a decade now! I tried to book our place online, no luck. Called in the morning, no answer. Tried just one more time at 9am and success! They told us to head straight over for the 10am tour! We rushed out, hopped onto the metro, found our way to Notre Dame and suddenly we were on our own Tour de France! This tour was AWESOME! Bike About Paris is their name and they pride themselves on taking tourists to the places they wouldn’t normally see in Paris, the back-roads if you will. Our guide, Chris, was super...
Read MorePalace of Versailles
What to say about Versailles? Well, this place is HUGE. Huge doesn’t even describe it actually, it is gigantic plus enormous times huge to the 20th power! We had a great time exploring the palace, the gardens and the property which literally goes on for miles and miles. We arrived at PV around 10 am after a very easy train ride and left at nearly 5pm, aside from a 15 minute lunch and a 10 minute nap on the lawn near a pond we were on our feet, walking, that ENTIRE time, and we didn’t even cover half of the place! It was insane. The pictures are the best way to see the palace and the things we saw, trying to describe it all here just wouldn’t make sense. After we arrived back in Paris we headed to our hotel–oh, wait, side note! On the train...
Read MoreJust a tease…
We’ve had a great day. We headed out early to the Palace of Versailles and spent hours upon hours exploring there. Our evening consisted of dinner at a NEW restaurant! And Le Tour Eiffel! There are lots of great pictures and a few more details, but we’re tired, we’re on vacation, so we’re going to bed!!! Nite nite everyone!!! Bookmark on Delicious Digg this post Recommend on Facebook share via Reddit Share with Stumblers Tumblr it Tweet about it Tell a friend
Read MoreParis – Day 2
Well, today we started the day by sleeping in. We were both exhausted from last night and didn’t leave the hotel room till 1pm. That’s noon for us though because we are still on London time . So, yeah, we got a late start, but we made up for it. First stop: an awesome street market right outside our hotel. We bought a baguette, grapes, tomatoes and apples before being yelled at by a cheese vendor. Nicole politely asked “par le’ vue engle” (or however you spell it) and was greeted with a harsh no, a shake of the head then 10 seconds of french that neither of us understood. Our guess is that it wasn’t nice. The positive, a women next to us offered to translate our needs. When we asked for a nice cheese with bread the women...
Read MoreBon Jour!
It wasn’t until tonight that I realized food in London was terrible. Heck, food in the US, Mexico, Canada and Australia is terrible for that matter! On a daily basis, you’d never know this. But once you sit down to your first truly French meal, it becomes all to clear that they know something here that the rest of the world doesn’t. Kevin and I just finished a truly amazing dinner…but I will get to that in a bit. We’re in Paris! We arrived this afternoon after only 2 hours and 15 minutes on the Eurostar train. That puppy moves! I never thought I’d say this, but I think I prefer airplanes to trains. I had never really ridden a train and I wasn’t fully prepared for what was to come. Our seats faced backwards which instantly...
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