Thursday, October 28, 2010

Versailles

Tuesday we went on an all day bicycle tour of Versailles. It was through Fat Tire Bike Tours and it was so much fun! I can't even remember the last time I was on a bicycle but I definitely picked it right back up which is a good thing because our first biking experience was riding through Paris to the train station. Once we all franticly got on the train with our bikes it was just a short ride to Versailles where our first stop was at this really fantastic market to pick up stuff for our picnic later in the day :)
After picking up goodies from the market we rode to the actual estate which is enormous. Most people only go to the main house and don't even see the grounds because they're so big which is a shame because it was pretty fantastic to bicycle around such a beautiful estate!
Marie Antoinette's house
After we rode around for a couple of hours we parked at the far end of the estate and had a picnic. Since we were in France we went for the traditional picnic foods, you know, cheese and bread and of course wine. We threw in a couple of fruits and nuts for good measure :)Here's the view from our spot on the grass. It was a little cloudy and grey but still a very nice view!After the picnic we did a little more biking and then we headed to the main house which is what everyone is familiar with when you say Versailles (the gigantic building in the background in the picture above).
The actual house was super crowded and had some really weird artwork displayed within the rooms.
Hall of Mirrors
We made a quick pass through most of the rooms in the house before heading out to check out the gardens.
That about sums up our day at Versailles. We had to take the bikes on the train again and then bicycle through Paris to get back to the tour office. The next day's itinerary included renting a car and driving several hours which was a much welcome treat after an entire day on a bicycle, I was just a tiny bit sore :)


Sunday, October 24, 2010

Paris (part deux)

I forgot to mention that my last post was my 100th post! I don't really know what kind of significance that holds but I thought I'd mention it :)

Days 2 and 3 - Let the touristy stuff begin!

Sunday it rained all day so we really didn't do a whole lot but between Sunday and Monday we went to the Louvre, Notre Dame, the Arc de Triomphe, and took a river cruise on the Seine.

The Louvre was amazing of course and was huge. You could probably spend an entire week just visiting the Louvre but John and I went for the condensed version. We picked the highlights we wanted to see and ended up probably spending half a day there. I was really more in awe of the building itself than the artwork which I know is not the way it's supposed to be. I think it's me being an interior designer because John made fun of me every time I oohed and awed. He definitely was more interested in the art :)

How could you not love this ceiling, I mean it's AMAZING!

My favorite sculpture, the marble cushion looks more like a cushion than it does marble!

The gardens outside of the Louvre

We went to the Notre Dame cathedral pretty close to closing so we just walked around the outside which was plenty impressive but don't worry, we did make it to the inside on the last day we spent in Paris. Here's pictures of the outside for now :)

The Arc de Triomphe was pretty cool because we walked up to the top of it and hung out on the observation deck for a while which happened to be right around sunset. We have a similar arch in NYC in Washington Square Park but of course it's much smaller.

Lastly the river cruise on the Seine which was beautiful but really chilly. The weather was much colder than I really anticipated the whole time we were in Paris. We had lots of cloudy days with some drizzle too. The river cruise added wind and made it way too cold for the jackets we had on but besides a little shivering we got some really great pictures.

I realize this post is waaaay too long so the next post will just be our day at Versailles, it deserves it's own post anyway :)

Saturday, October 23, 2010

Paris

John and I went on a fabulous vacation to Paris a couple of weeks ago. It was really a perfect trip and it was soooo hard to go back to work after that!

We left on a Friday night and arrived in Paris around lunchtime on Saturday. We rented an apartment on airbnb.com so we met the apartment owner to get the keys. She was incredibly nice and told us about her favorite places to eat and drink in her neighborhood. She also left us a nice bottle of wine to enjoy. Renting an apartment turned out to be a great experience because we got to see a little more authentic side of Paris and we weren't crammed into a tiny hotel.
View from the balcony in the apartment
From the apartment we could hear the bells from this lovely church

We were pretty jet lagged after the flight so we took a nap for a couple of hours and then went to a bar to watch the Razorback and Alabama game. That's right, John did some extensive research and found a Canadian bar that shows American football games. So not only did we go to watch an American game at a Canadian bar where English was the only language being spoken but we also ran into other Razorback fans! How insane is that?
Our Razorback friends

There was a really nice couple from Oklahoma that was vacationing in Paris as well and then two other guys, one from AR who recently moved to Paris and then one from Paris who went to school at the U of A. It was very surreal to be in a different country but still be able to watch the game with other fans :) The whole night was so positive that I'm just going to glaze over the fact that we lost.

So that was our first day in Paris, I know, really exciting stuff :)

Writer's Block?

I just realized it's officially been a month since my last post!

I've been stuck trying to figure out how to sum up our amazing vacation to Paris and so I haven't posted anything which is ridiculous so I'm just going to jump in and hope for the best :)

Here goes.....