Paris

On Saturday, November 8th, our wonderful friends in Belgium said they would keep the kids while I took David to Paris.  He missed our big trip last Thanksgiving and I didn't really want to take the kids again because they would have been extremely bored.  I can't tell you how excited I was when they offered to take the kids!!!

We had to get up really early, before the sun.  Here we are on the second train of the day.  It was only about 1 hour and 20 minutes to get to Paris from here and pleasant because we had no children to entertain!  Though they are really great kids when it comes to traveling.

The sun coming up as we are heading to Paris.

David's first sight of the Eiffel Tower.  It was a beautiful morning, blue sky and all!!  It is still amazing.  I am not going to bore you with all the history again, if you are really interested you can go back to the post from the first time we went about a year ago.  :-)

The line was huge to take the elevator up and since we didn't have children, we took the stairs!!  So nice to have that option!

A view off one side of the Eiffel Tower towards the museum.

My attempt at a selfie while kissing David, not too bad.  ;-)

Looking up from the middle level.  We tried to get to the top, but the sign said it was saturated.  So that was a no go.

This was kind of fun and I didn't see it on the first go round.  It is a clear floor you can walk on, you can see the HUGE lines below us waiting to get tickets to get up in the tower.  Thank goodness we arrived there when we did.

Cool sign at the top.

David - isn't he so handsome?!?

My turn, proof I was there.  ;-)

These were our traveling partners for the day.  I found out one of my best friends (since 5th grade) was going to be in Paris this weekend.  So I did a little flipping around of schedules so we could hang out for the day.  It was so Awesome to be able to see Tammy and Nathan for the day!!  It had been way too long!!!!

This is a book store by Notre Dame, it is for budding authors.  If they don't have enough money to pay for room and board, they just have to work in the bookstore for so many hours and then they have the rest of the time to write.  They still do it to this day.

A public water fountain - they are so much cooler looking here than in the US.

I am not exactly sure what this is, it is a different type of art I guess.  To say the least it was interesting.

This is supposed to be the oldest tree in Europe.  You can see they are holding it up with cement.  One tried to make it look like part of the tree and then they just gave up and put up the cement.  They are trying hard to keep it alive, maybe a little too hard.

David with Notre Dam behind him.  Look at this weather!

It is so intricate with all the carving and those statues are taller than David to give you some perspective.

This is the center of Paris right outside of Notre Dame.  They call this kilometer zero of French highways and which is considered the official center of Paris.

Gigantic and pretty awesome!!!

The famous window inside the Notre Dame.

It is a beautiful cathedral!

This is the statue of Charlemagne outside Notre Dame cathedral.  He was the King of the Franks from 768 to his death in 814.

Tammy and I in front of Notre Dame.

This is the original lock bridge.  They are trying to get away from this because the bridge gets so heavy that it breaks and falls into the river.

I thought this was interesting in the middle of the bridge.

Notre Dame from the back - I think it is almost more impressive than the front.

We are way too cute!!!

This is the statue of Ferdinand Foch, he was one of the reasons that the allies won WWI.  What is interesting after the signing of the Treaty of Versailles, Foch declared, "This is not a peace.  It is an armistice for twenty years."  His words proved prophetic: the Second World War started twenty years and 65 days later.

We stopped for some coffee, not being able to read French, this is what David ended up with.  :-)

The third place David wanted to go to was the Louvre.

Here he is at the Louvre!!!!

This is the winged Victory of Samothrace.  It is a 2nd century BC marble sculpture of the Greek goddess Nike (Victory).  It is described as the greatest masterpiece of Hellenistic sculpture.

David and the Mona Lisa, he is still trying to figure out why this is the most famous painting of DaVinci.

The ceilings are truly amazing in there.

I saw this in there and was not sure why it was there.  It is a modern art where the artist took four different paintings and put them into one.  Interesting is my word for it.

This is by the same artist that we saw in Rome - Paolo Bernini.  He is truly amazing!

David saw this and said it is the origin of the first selfie - so of course I had to take on in front of it!!!

Tammy and I laughing while trying to take a selfie.  It was so much fun being with her again!!!

This is another famous one by Michelangelo - Captive (The Dying Slave).  It was created between 1513 and 1516.  It was to serve with another figure the Rebellious Slave at the tomb of Pope Julius II.

This is Aphrodite, known as the Venus de Milo.  It is one of the most famous works of ancient Greek sculpture created sometime between 120 and 100 BC

This statue is made by Praxiteles, the Athenian sculptor who created the first female nude of Greek sculpture.

Have to have a little bit of Egypt in here.

After that it was getting dark and late so we headed back toward the Notre Dame and a train terminal.  But we had to stop for some great pictures in front of it at night first!

Our last picture together, it was only one day, but it was like we were never apart.  It was such a fun day and so relaxing and David was finally able to see Paris.  We headed back home on the train and was back in Belgium by 10 pm that night!!!  Amazing, we decided to go to Paris for the day.  It is still a little unreal that we are here and how close we are to everything in Europe.