The city of light

I don’t even know where to start. Paris was awesome! We were there 5 nights. We went to the Louvre, Versailles, Chateau de Malmaison, Musee de Orsay, and squeezed in a food tour in Montmartre. I was having withdrawals when we got back so I binge watched all 3 seasons of Emily in Paris on Netflix.

Our original plans were to stay in Montmartre, a bohemian neighborhood known for the artists who used to live there. Picasso and Van Gogh ring a bell? But, there was a mechanical problem with our apartment so we stayed in the San Denis neighborhood. The problem was we didn’t find out about having to move apartments until 2 days before our trip and I booked everything with the intention of being in Montmartre. We made it work but lets just say we got our steps in and then some.

For our first night in Paris we did a food tour in the Montmartre neighborhood. We stopped for bread at the boulangerie, we got chocolate and macaroons at the patisserie, cheese from the fromagerie, meats from the charcuterie, and crepes from the Creperie. Everything was delicious but the cheese with truffles in the center was next level! We also stopped to see the famous “I love you” wall. It has the words “I love you” written over 300 times in 250 different languages. If you watch Emily in Paris you will recognize it.

Number one on our hit list was the Louvre and it did not disappoint. Thank God we got there as soon as it opened because by the time we left it was packed. Highlights for me were the Venus de Milo, the Winged Victory of Samothrace, the Coronation of Napoleon, the Mona Lisa, and the portraits from Thomas Gainsborough and Thomas Lawrence (my favorite painters). Adam would probably say he liked all of the Jacque Louis David paintings.

Just to give you an idea of what it is like to see the Mona Lisa – the photo below left is an unobstructed view of the famous Mona Lisa. The photo on the right is the que you have to wait in to get to the Mona Lisa.

Of course we had to go to Versailles. I started watching the series, Versailles, on Netflix, in preparation for our visit but unfortunately it was removed from the streaming service before I could finish season 2. Season 3 is on Netflix but I want to finish season 2, but that is a story for another day. Versailles was very opulent and huge. This is the only time we really had a language barrier problem. Versailles is located outside of Paris and we were going to take a train to get there. We think our train was canceled and we couldn’t figure out which train to take to get to Versailles. Luckily, I found a very nice girl who spoke English and helped us.

In a nutshell Versailles is a lot of extra. But, I have to tell you the story about these two paintings. They are both of Marie Antoinette but look completely different. Many people embellished their paintings to hide ugly features and accentuate the features they liked and this is the perfect example. The painting on the right is a natural painting of Marie Antoinette and she hated it. It features her bulging eyes, rounded forehead, Austrian lip, and the prominent Habsburg chin.

More photos from Versailles.

The whole reason we went to Chateau de Malmaison (the residence of Empress Josephine) was so Adam could see the Jacque Louis David painting of Napoleon Crossing the Alps. The chateau is located outside of Paris in a quaint town. We stumbled upon Sapristi, a restaurant decorated like a ski lodge from the outside.

We visited the Musee de Orsay. Here are some of my favorites and then the famous paintings…

Would I go back to Paris…yes, without a doubt. The city is absolutely beautiful. The food is so delicious. I thought the people were friendly enough. They kind of remind me of me. They don’t make eye contact, they don’t say hello, they don’t make small talk, they just mind their business. We found Parisians fairly willing to speak English. We got a couple food menus completely in French but I had an app to translate so that helped.

As we say goodbye to Paris, here is a photo dump of this beautiful city I can’t wait to revisit.