Paris in the Fall!

For our first "leave the baby at home" vacation we decided on a long weekend in Paris, since neither one of us had been and well it's PARIS!! While we love toting Stella around EVERYWHERE we go, having experienced the hell that is the London Underground with a stroller and/or a Baby Bjorn in the hottest summer on record, I guiltily looked forward to a city adventure sans buggy and sans baby. Thanks to James' parents who were visiting Scotland for a couple of weeks, we were lucky enough to have a vacation to ourselves.  In the meantime, Stella didn't fare too bad either with ALL the attention she could ever ask for.  Now we just have to undo some of that spoiling that was done while we were away.

We decided to stay in the Paris suburbs in Versailles (since we didn't know any better) and we figured we could stroll through the gardens and have easier access to the Palace which was included in our museum pass. We stayed at the Waldorf Astoria-Trianon Palace Versailles which was situated in the Versailles Palace Park/gardens adjacent.  For European hotels, the rooms were ginormous and had most everything you would need.  The biggest downer of our accommodations were that they were in Versailles, which isn't serviced by the Paris Metro.  We were however able to take the train in and out with one quick changeover.  It did however, take 40 minutes on the train alone then another 20 minutes to walk to the actual hotel. Considering we walked hours and hours and miles and miles each day. The 20 minute walk was cake (unless of course your feet were bleeding from mistakenly adding a shoe insert to your flats).

With that being said, once our flight touched down and we spent 2 hours getting through the airport and purchasing our train tickets, we had a quick turn around in order to make our 8pm boat tour of Paris on the Seine.

DAY 1: SEINE RIVER BOAT CRUISE
As a birthday surprise, James had booked a dinner boat tour for our upcoming trip to Paris through the Bateaux-Mouches company.  It was nice to have one "dress-up" activity on the itinerary.  The tour included a 2 hour tour up and down the Seine through central Paris with a perfectly timed pass by the Eiffel Tower during the hourly twinkle lighting. We enjoyed a lovely 5-course dinner with a champagne starter and a bottle of wine. Then, because I hadn't been feeling too well with nausea from a migraine, we wandered to the upper deck before dessert for some air and just in time for the sparkling light up of the Eiffel Tower which we had pretty much forgotten about.  All in all it was a great start to our Paris weekend.  I do have one pointer: always pack a "nice" hand bag that can fit your "feel pretty" heels because those cobblestones are hell in heels.  I had the foresight to walk with my flats with my heels in tow, but I had to make James carry the tote with my heels, because, quite honestly, it just didn't "go."

So a little part cheesy with the retro ceiling lights, but it was a good decision and choice overall for our intro to Paris.

Dinner on the boat with James trying his darnedest to make me feel better even though I felt as green as the Grinch.

Really was better in person and the sparkling lights made you feel warm and fuzzy with happiness.

Sorry. It really IS just a minute of twinkling lights.

DAY 2: CHURCHES & MUSEUMS 
So we, or rather I, decided the Paris Museum Pass would be the best option for us given the sights we wanted to see. Plus we hate the thought of having to cut out sights from our plan, because we had to wait in line for 3 hours to buy tickets someplace, as well as to enter and be scanned through security etc.  At worst, we figured with a 2-day pass, we would break even, but at least we would jump to the front of the line with our museum pass.
So first thing, we had to pick up our passes in town only one metro stop up from the Louvre, which I had purchased online the week before.  We did learn however, that we could have picked them up easily at the airport had we known what terminal we would be landing in and where the kiosk itself was in the airport.  But otherwise, it wasn't too much of a hassle.  It likely took us about 20 minutes extra including the detour on the Metro.
Our first stop was for Sainte Chapelle which is on the Ile de la Cite (basically an island on the Seine in the heart of Paris).  The chapel itself was on the grounds to the Justice Building.  The star attraction here is not the building, but the wall to wall, floor to ceiling, stained glass windows.  With restoration being conducted for 1+years, it was a bit difficult to fully appreciate the chapel interior in its full glory, but it was grand nonetheless.                                                               

           

A quick 10 minute or so walk east was our next stop at Cathedrale Notre Dame de Paris. Admission is in fact free here so you do have to queue, or enter the mass line (do with that what you will) provided there's an actual mass at the time, However, the museum pass will grant you access to the tower tour, which we could never actually locate, though we didn't try too hard.

LUNCH BREAK     
We had planned to spend the afternoon/evening visiting the two museums on our list, one of which was the Louvre of course.  Being as how the Louvre is so LARGE, extensive, and spread out, we opted to visit on their late night opening.  This meant that we had some time to kill and go at a leisurely pace through D'Orsay and Paris as well.  We did as the Parisians do and enjoyed a late lunch (late for Americans, anyway) on a quaint side walk cafe situated between Ste Chapelle and Notre Dame ("...when in Rome...")

James trying not to hate picture-taking.

It just screams Paris!

It's hard to miss [at least part of] the Louvre when walking anywhere along the Seine, since it stretches for blocks and blocks.

After our obligatory Paris cafe lunch, we strolled our way along the Seine and past countless vendor stalls to the Musee D'Orsay for our first museum stop. As most any guidebook will mention, it's an old train station converted into a museum.

As mentioned, it hard to miss the Louvre from anywhere in Paris.

MUSEUM BREAK 
Having whipped through d'Orsay and seeing everything we planned on seeing, we strolled (again) over to the Eiffel tower where we had an impromptu picnic with the rest of Paris, courtesy of some mini bar wine and the best beignet du chocolat ever!  Sorry, but Cafe du Monde's got nothing on this.

On to the Louvre Museum we went with no real hurry.  While they usually close at about 6pm, on Fridays they stay open late until 930pm. So we were able to wander around at our own pace without any real annoyances from other people as we had previously had with the hordes of tour groups and their indoor umbrellas at the Uffizi in Florence.  So we made it to the main attraction first, the Mona Lisa, and yes; it IS much smaller than you would expect and there's a constant horde of people around it.  However, again later in the day, the horde is much smaller.  We accidentally made our way through MOST if not all, of the Louvre without ever intending to.  Again, one of the advantages to researching TripAdvisor before you go ANYWHERE!

Making my way down the bucket list.

Venus de Milo

Great Sphinx of Tanis

Winged Bull

Sunset at the Louvre

Louvre through the Pyramid

I felt like Robert Langdon was gonna race through at any moment.

DAY 3: VERSAILLES & CHAMPS ELYSEE
So Saturday, was not as site-packed as the previous day and we decided to make our way through the Palace at Versailles and Gardens by way of the adjacent park.  We had a nice outdoor lunch at the edge of the grand canal, after which we planned on strolling through the gardens.  However, that plan went bust when we found out they had the Musical Fountain Show in the gardens-the one thing the museum pass didn't include.  So then we decided to tour the palace itself after all, but again we couldn't even enter the darn gardens to cut across and had to walk another 30-40 minutes around to the "front entrance."

Funny that this was just part of the outer park at Versailles.  I think we would have been quite satisfied if these were part of the gardens themselves.

Marie Antoinette's Estate-A palace within a palace plus another palace!! No wonder they revolted!

Somewhat underwhelming entrance given the rest of the grandeur and over-opulence.

Hall of Mirrors

"I love me some shiny crystal bling!"

Still in the Hall of Mirrors

For our last night in Paris, we had planned on again strolling (Sorry! It's just what you do in Paris) up the Champs Elysee to the Arc de Triomphe for a panoramic view of Paris.  We decided on this climb versus the Eiffel Climb for a few reasons: location, fewer steps, fewer tourists, and not the least of which, it was cheaper (it was included in the Museum Pass, while the eiffel tower could only be purchased on site and hence no line skipping).  Plus it just fit into our itinerary (or spreadsheet) better. As an added bonus we got a bird's eye view to the insanity that is the least organized roundabout we have ever seen just below and circling the arc.  It made for great Saturday Night entertainment.  At some point we even managed to see several cyclists make it through along with one lowly attempt by tourists to actually cross.  (If you look hard enough you'll find the underground tunnel to get here).

Lots of stairs, but not nearly as claustrophobic as St. Peter's Basilica/Vatican Museum

Passed a Mercedes STORE (not dealership) on our walk back the Champs

So at this point, James had already stopped twice to watch some sort of street entertainment, and I was, well, just tired of walking so I sat and waited.

So on our walk back to the hotel in Versailles we passed a small cafe with a car outside that had be saran-wrapped.  Then we passed ANOTHER.  That's one way to keep you car dry in the rain.