PARIS!

Well, despite how long it has taken me to post, we had a fabulous time in Paris! It was my third time visiting, but like London, I hadn't been back in seven years (it seems the heyday of my travels occurred while in college, and then law school really cramped my ability to travel, while also taking all my money to do so)...

So we took our very expensive train ride from London to Paris (via Chunnel) on Monday, July 26th, and then proceeded to spend 4 days eating and drinking our way through the city, with lots of walking and 'tourist' activities in between. We didn't really have an agenda (other than a few restaurant reservations Jared had made in advance, upon extensive research, only the best, you know), and so we mostly wandered around and tried to hit some of the highlights in between.


The Arc de Triomphe

After checking into our hotel on Monday afternoon (the Hotel Therese, 3 minutes from the Lourve) we decided to explore, and began by walking around the Louvre and into the des Tuileries. On both of my previous trips to Paris, I was traveling with other people who were kind of making the calls on what we were seeing and when (my first trip to Paris was Spring Break during my sophomore year of college, when I was traveling with an acquaintance who spoke French [I do not] and so I felt like I kind of needed to stick with her, even though she was an art major dragging me around to various obscure museums, and my second trip was with my Aunt and Uncle the summer I lived in London, and I wanted to stick with them because they were nice enough to take me with them). So, this was truly my first time in Paris, completely on my own terms, and able to see and do what I wanted, when I wanted (Jared is quite accommodating in that way).

So, having never gotten to just meander through the des Tuileries before, we had a lovely time ambling through and continued all the way down the Champs Elysees to the Arc de Triomphe. Perfect beautiful weather; a great afternoon. And, of course, we had to go to the top...

View of the Champs Elysees from the top of the Arc de Triomphe.

View from the top up to Montmartre and Sacre Coeur.

The Tour Eiffel from Trocadero.

And after taking in the views from the Arc de Triomphe, we decided we'd continue on to the Eiffel Tower, and get a glimpse of all the major sights on our first day. And after relaxing in the Parc du Champ de Mars under the Eiffel Tower for awhile, we went on a long walk down Boulevard Grenelle in search of cheese and wine for dinner, only to discover that the place Jared wanted to go was closed. So we took the metro back to our hotel to make a plan for dinner.

Since we had dinner reservations for the following three nights to do big prix fixe menus, we wanted a low-key night, and to get our first taste of what we came to France for in the first place: cheese, bread, and wine (and pork and chocolate, of course). So we asked the hotel concierge for a recommendation on a good place to procure provisions in the neighborhood. He sent us around the corner to the Monoprix, and we were pleasantly surprised, as we bought a feast of 3 kinds of cheese, prosciutto, 2 bottles of wine (Bordeaux, as the concierge insisted that drinking Cote du Rhone, which Jared had mentioned, was low-brow), crackers, bread, and RILLETTES (pulled pork spread, which looks nasty [kind of like a pate] but tastes like a delicious mix of turkey gravy and pulled pork and is strangely addictive). So we had a picnic on the bed in our room, and then passed out in a wine, cheese, and pork induced haze. A fitting conclusion to our first night in Paris.