I have to preface my opinions of Paris with 2 things. 1) None of us spoke French. Andy knew a few words from grade school and thank goodness he knew that much. 2) We were unprepared for Paris. With the ash cloud, we all honestly thought we weren't going to make it and none of us really researched Paris like we normally would have. So on to the trip...We left London early Friday morning and boarded the Euro Star train headed to Paris. The Euro Star is the high speed train that travels part of the way under the English Channel. The train ride itself was nice. You really couldn't tell you were going any faster than normal and we arrived at Paris in just over 2 hours.
As we approached Paris, the surroundings got dirtier and dirtier. By the time we were actually in Paris itself, there was graffiti everywhere. I mean everywhere! I was slightly disappointed, but I figured the train station might just be in the bad part of the city. Ummm...no. Honestly, it was like that in the majority of places and was such a contrast from London. Really from what I could tell only the touristy or historical areas were remotely clean.
So we got off the train and planned to take the metro to our hotel. Luckily, we pre-purchased Paris metro passes in London before we left so we didn't have to worry about that. We followed the signs towards the correct metro line and we hit stairs. Not a few stairs...like 2-3 flights worth. Keep in mind we had all our stuff for 12 days with us. A huge suitcase and a carry-on for each one of us. There was no way the girls were carrying their bags up and down these stairs themselves. No elevators, no escalators, nothing - only stairs. We didn't exactly plan for that. So I am struggling, carrying both our luggage pieces at once. Andy and Lisa had two big duffel bags that were very awkward to carry. So Andy is either carrying one bag down, then running back up and getting the other bag or just dragging them both down the stairs at the same time. Bang, bang, bang. Needless to say, we were getting some looks!
So we finally board our first metro line after the stairs fiasco. We get off to change trains and we had more stairs both up and down this time, oh goody. We finally get to the next turnstile where we have to run our tickets. Well one of the luggage pieces I am carrying gets stuck in the turnstile so I am basically stuck. I start looking around for help, and I hear Andy yelling about somebody stealing his wallet. He is screaming at this guy and yelling police. Of course, there is no one around. We are basically on our own. Some guy pick pocketed Andy as he tried to get his bag through the turnstile. Andy felt it and started yelling at the guy. The guy actually had his wallet but threw it back at him after Andy starting yelling. I guess he didn't want the trouble. Eventually, I was able to get my luggage free and get through the turnstile but after that we never really felt safe. We knew that we stuck out and that there was really no one there to help us.
We finally made it to our hotel. It was small boutique type hotel with a psychedelic feel. That afternoon we took the metro to the Louvre. The building itself was pretty amazing especially the pyramid. We walked around for around 2 hours and saw the highlights - Mona Lisa, Venus de Milo, etc. But it was so hot inside and we were so tired from all the walking from the metro to the hotel, we were just ready to get out of there. We ended up leaving the Louvre and taking a boat cruise down the Seine river. Like the Thames river in London, the Seine river runs through the main part of the city. We were able to see many of the hot spots from the water - the Eiffel Tower, Notre-Dame Cathedral, the Louvre and the Orsay Museum. It was nice to see everything without having to do all the walking.
On our second day in Paris, we decided we would do the hop-on, hop-off bus tour again since we had such great luck with it in London. This time it was OK. The weather didn't cooperate as nicely. It started off sunny but it got colder and colder as the day went. It was also a "bank holiday" so Paris was packed with visitors and we had to fight the crowds to change buses multiple times. We ended up seeing pretty much everything we wanted to see, but everything was just so crowded. One of our best memories was getting banana, nutella crepes for lunch. They were delicious and the pastries are "to die for". The French definitely know how to do dessert.
Our last day was a travel day. It was a 9 hour flight back from Paris to Charlotte and then a quick 20 minute flight to Greensboro. We did decide to pay for a taxi to the airport this time. Worth every penny...or euro. All in all, it was a great trip. We had a blast with Andy and Lisa, as always. We loved seeing so many different things and getting to meet Andy's family. As we were leaving we joked how hard it was to believe that we had seen Stonehenge on this same trip. It seemed like so long ago and we had done so much since then. It was our last big vacation before Henley arrives and we were glad to spend it with such good friends.
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