PARIS

j'aime paris.

for a little over a month before we left for our european holiday i tried to learn french. tried is the key word. i was able to get some basics down but it wasn't as much as i had hoped for. my favorite line was of course "parlez-vous anglais? (do you speak english?)" and "excusez-moi (excuse me)." we found the french people to be extremely nice and most spoke english. of course their english wasn't as good at the dutch in amsterdam but it was so much prettier.

we'd seen so much amazing things on the trip i didn't fully appreciate the beauty of paris until i came back home. a week ago i went to vegas with my husband and we went to the paris hotel. the vegas eiffel tower doesn't even compare to the parisian one. all the decor and ornate stone made me miss paris so much. i will have to go back (and go too so many other european countries!).

and don't forget the other stops on our trip london and amsterdam.

now enough about me to the lovely pictures...


the eiffel tower is just gorgeous. since it was so close to our hotel we went to it every night.

oh the food!! the cheese is devine! and i tried escargot, it was fine but darn hard to get out of the shell. pretty woman i now understand how yours popped out of the tongs.

HOTEL
we had an amazing room with a big bathroom and a lovely view.

DAY 10

LES CATACOMBS

we waited in line almost 2 hours to go into the catacombs and it was cool. apparently a long time ago they decided to dig up all the graves because the cemeteries were full and they put all the bones underground. they are organized with what cemetery they came from.

SHAKESPEARE & COMPANY

NOTRE DAME

flying buttresses

DAY 11

MONTMARTRE WALK

DALI MUSEUM

LE BATEAU-LAVOIR (PICASSO'S STUDIO)

MOULIN DE LA GALETTE

DAY 12
MUSEE RODIN GARDEN

all the single ladies...

DEYROLLE
this was in the movie midnight in paris if you haven't seen it then you need to rent it immediately. it is crazy good.

CHANEL'S APARTMENT
sadly to tour her actual place is like 2k per person so we didn't go but of course there was a chanel store in the bottom floor.

DAY 13
VERSAILLES
versailles is huge and of course we went there on one of the hottest days. we walked just about the whole thing. it is over whelming because there is decoration everywhere. here's a little history...(wiki) "The Palace of Versailles or simply Versailles, is a royal château in Versailles in the Île-de-Franceregion of France. In French it is the Château de Versailles. When the château was built, Versailles was a country village; today, however, it is a suburb of Paris, some 20 kilometres southwest of the French capital. The court of Versailles was the centre of political power in France from 1682, when Louis XIV moved from Paris, until the royal family was forced to return to the capital in October 1789 after the beginning of the French Revolution. Versailles is therefore famous not only as a building, but as a symbol of the system of absolute monarchy of the Ancien Régime."

hall of mirrors 

following in the footsteps of american artist jeff koons, the french xavier veilhan and bernar venet, and the japanese takashi murakami, joana vasconcelos will be the first woman and the youngest contemporary artist to exhibit in versailles. 

marie antoinette

DAY 14

the love locks on pont des arts and pont de l'archevêché

ARC DE TRIOMPHE

MUSEE DE L'ORANGERIE

MUSEE D'ORSAY

the musee d'orsay was originally a train station that they turned into a art museum.

MUSEE DU LOUVRE

the mona lisa was pretty but you couldn't get remotely close to her. she was incased in a plexiglas with a rope keeping people at least 20 feet away and a ton of people all trying to get a look.

mona lisa

winged godess of victory

venus de milo

DAY 15

sadly we left paris early in the morning and headed back home to oregon.