Versaille and the Louvre

Paris Day 4:

All packed up and ready to leave the coolest youth hostel in Paris, this is me hiding behind my giant backpack.

Our beds! (super new and comfy)

The internet lounge, where I spent almost every night.

After we left our hostel, we jumped on a train to Versialle for the first half of our day. This is the Chapel at Versaille

Every room in the palace has elaborate ceilings and decorum upthe wazoo. This is just an example, there are about 100 + more pictures, but they get repetitive after a while, so I won't bore you with them here.

Due to the horrible winds that day, they closed the gardens to the public, but here is a small view out of one of the palace windows.

The famous hall of mirrors at Versaille

Wish I was outside...

This is the bed that Marie-Antoinette slept in, and the door to the left is the door she escaped out of during the rioting crowd in 1789. The room is the Queens chamber and nineteen royal children of France were born here.

Taking silly pictures in the gigantic mirrors inthe palace...

Then back on the train to central Paris to visit the Louvre!

Venus de Milo (Aphrodite)

A Sphinx

Ancient Egypt is awesome.

The central courtyard of the Louvre at sunset

I felt so small next to some of these artifacts

The Mona Lisa! She is on a wall all by herself and covered in layers of bullet proof glass, with multiple guards in the area.

The crown jewels of France! (Some of them...I have other pics somewhere) These stone were HUGE!

L'Metro, got us around Paris very well, including to the shady-est hotel in Paris...for the next two days.

The Steps of Paris

Hey, I haven't posted in a few days, my internet connections hae been few and far between. We left Paris on Easter sunday, went to Rome, and now we are in Ascoli Piceno for the first night. Our hotel is beautiful! But more to come on that later. For now, I'm going to try and catch up a little with our Paris adventures. Here is day 3 (March 20th), the day we climbed the the steps of Paris (to the top of both Notre Dame Cathedral and the Eiffel Tower):

Notre Dame cathedral

Notre Dame side aisles, amazing!

O-H-I-O! Go Bucks!

I'm a gargoyle!

A Gargoyle's view of the city

This is the Notre Dame bell that Quasimodo rang (the Hunchback)

Brandi, Kendrae and I on top of Notre Dame

At a kids park right outisde of the cathedral...haha

I got to play on the squirrel!

An accordian player onthe Siene bridge (I'd thought you'd appreciate this, mom)

Ecole Militarie (The Military School) at the end of the Eiffel Tower lawn

The "Peace" pavilion on the Eiffel lawn

O-H-I-O again! Go Bucks!

Eiffel Tower on a cloudy/windy/rainy day (but we climbed to the top anyway)

At the bottom of the steps of the Eiffel Tower, about to start our long journey

Halfway yet? probably not.

At the first landing, there were some cool exhibits, here they show some hydraulics used for their elevators.

View from the second landing up

View from the top!

Then when we made it back down (exhausted) we went to our local Brasserie to get some baguettes...and sword fight with them.


I have some cool videos from this day as well, but I'm having trouble uploading them, that will have to be done later as well.

Paris With Friends

After a day alone, my amigos finally jumped the pond, these were our adventures:

Brandi and Kendrae finally found the hostel, and we immediately got to roaming the city.

While on our way to Sacre Coeur (Sacred Heart), we found this charming little gothic church, Saint Laurent, and stopped in. Since it was Brandi's birthday, we stopped at Gare de l'Est train station en route to get her a glass of wine, and some baguette sandwiches.

Waiting for the RER B at Gare de l'Est

We found the way to Sacre Coeur by asking about 10 Parisians directions. Parlez vous Anglis? (Do you speak English?) I know this phrase well be now. This is the view from half way up the hike, Sacre Coeur is at the highest point in Paris.

Sacre Coeur

On the way back down, in our very long search for the Moulin Rouge, we passed by this tiny square of artists just painting and sketching in the street. Way cool.

And in this little square, we happened upon our first European Gelato Shop!

...and it was delicious.

Fuel Efficient? I think so.

Next, we went to Pigalle (Pig Ally), and saw the Moulin Rouge! We couldn't go inside, it was WAY too expensive for a show. Anyway, Pigalle is where all of the sex shops and strippers of Paris started, and the rest of my pics may not be blog appropriate. haha.

Eiffel tower at night, we decided to climb it the next day (today...more to come on that later)

O-H-I-O! Go Bucks!

For your viewing pleasure, a video!