Paris, Part One

As I was saying, we were supposed to go to Luxembourg. But when you look at your GPS and realize Paris is only an extra 30 minutes of drive time away, you choose Paris, because your time in Europe is limited and you need to see Paris.

So, we got in our car, hopped online and found a last-minute hotel deal near the Louvre for 89€ a night (really great deal, by the way. seriously recommend lastminute.com for last minute hotel deals), and headed to Paris. It was late afternoon when we left Waterloo.

Traffic was fine until we got into Paris. Then, it was hellish. Oh gawd those Parisians! They swerve and honk and cut you off! It's terrifying! Thankfully, Hubs drove and I brought back my Bradley Method childbirthing class breathing.

We finally arrived at our parking garage, 1km away from our hotel room (we later learned that there was one closer, but by that point, Hubs was DONE driving in Paris, plus we didn't know for sure if we could park closer, so we didn't bother trying). We grabbed our bags and walked to the hotel. It was literally a block from the Opera House (below) and a block in the opposite direction from the Louvre. Could not have asked for a better location, especially for such a low price. 

Upon check-in, we dumped our bags in our room and looked up how to get to the Eiffel Tower. We wanted to see it at night in all its glory. At 10 p.m., we set off to learn how to use Paris public transportation, and we got to the Eiffel tower.

At first, it looks smallish. I must have taken fifty photos of it, stopping for a new photo every hundred feet or so.

 It's anything but smallish. It's enormous. And impressive.

As you can tell, I was super impressed by the Eiffel Tower.

Next, we hurried back to the train station to get to the Arch de Triomphe. Super cool, too. We had to hurry, though, because Parisian public transportation closes (closes!) around midnight.

After we admired that for a while, it was back to the train to get over to the stop near the Louvre. We could easily walk to the hotel after that, so we weren't rushed. The plan was to see the Louvre's pyramids all lit up, then get some dinner, and head back to the hotel to sleep.

I would have loved to go inside, but there was no time in our short trip for that, so we'll definitely be going to Paris again in the future. The Louvre is so gorgeous. Breathtaking. We must have spent an hour there, just walking around, taking pictures, admiring its glory.

Before we knew it, the time was past midnight, and we were tired. We headed toward the hotel, looking for a bite to eat along the way. Would you believe there was NO PLACE for us to eat? Paris totally shuts down at night. I was shocked. We went back to the hotel a bit hungry, downed half a bottle of room temperature Coke Zero, and went to sleep.

We hit up McDonald's (don't judge) for breakfast the next morning, where we had burger patties on English muffins with ketchup and some cheese on it. Strange breakfast sandwich, but it filled us up. Then, we hit the town again, this time by day.

...to be continued