Paris 2016

To close out the springtime we took a little trip to Paris! Since our original trip in November got cancelled, we rescheduled for May and decided to just take Evelyn with us. She has been obsessed with Paris for awhile now (her best friend LOVES Paris so she got Evelyn onto it too). It was good to just go with her for the weekend though! We stayed at a place not far from the Eiffel Tower and got to walk and explore all over Paris. It was so beautiful! The weather was amazing, the architecture was amazing, the museums were awesome, the food was AMAZING (seriously...the croissants are one of the best things I've eaten in my life! I could eat croissants from Paris every day and be happy...and yes... they really are better than anywhere else! So soft and flaky and buttery and just the right amount of crisp outside...I would go back just for the croissants), and the Eiffel Tower was of course, impressive :) Paris never was on my "top must see" list but I'm glad we went!

The first day we went to the Notre Dame Cathedral...which was absolutely gorgeous! I know I've said it before but I love all the details and care that was taken into these amazing buildings. I am always so impressed that they were able to build these types of structures so long ago.

After the Notre Dame we did a little walk around the surrounding area. We went into another church across the river from the Notre Dame....Saint- Severin....which was a super gorgeous little church! It was actually a decent sized church, and the stained glass windows in it were absolutely stunning!

Another church we went into was Sainte-Chapelle (it was a royal chapel). King Louis IX used the chapel to house his holy relics, including Christ's Crown of Thorns. The inside walls are pretty much completely made up of stained glass windows....which are all made up of stories...mostly from the Bible. They were amazing to see!

The next stop on our walk was around the corner- The Conciergerie- which was a former prison in Paris- during the reign of terror it was used as a main "last stop" for thousands of people on their way to the guillotine...the most famous person held there being Marie Antoinette. There is a chapel there in the place where her cell was.

Next stop for that day was the Louvre (with a quick detour to one of the lock bridges and a yummy lunch)! We were pretty tired by then...and the Louvre is HUGE...so I don't think we fully embraced our tour of it (we for sure didn't see all of it) but we did get to see the Mona Lisa! As well as some other famous pieces too but Mona was probably the highlight of the Louvre :)

Our last item of the day was taking a little river cruise! We passed by most of the places we walked around that day but it was nice to sit and just enjoy the nice little ride and watch everything pass by. The last stop, and where we got off, was at the Eiffel Tower so we enjoyed a nice dinner and got to see the Tower light up! Which was Evelyn's favorite part of the trip :)

Our second day we took a train ride (had a little adventure getting there cuz the main trains weren't running so yeah...that was crazy) to Versailles! We spent most of the day there, first starting the tour inside (gorgeous!!!) and the afternoon exploring the park around it...which was HUGE and so beautiful! It was so nice to just walk around and enjoy the beautiful grounds.

Unfortunately/fortunately it started raining as soon as we got to the train station to go back to the city. It stopped raining enough for the rest of the day that we were able to go see some other things- first the Arc de Triomphe and then a bus ride around to some other spots (mainly just wanted to sit and site see). Then we ended the night like the night before, dinner and then seeing the Eiffel Tower light up! We missed the "twinkling lights" the night before so we made sure to see them this night.

gotta use that selfie stick! :)  

Our last day there we started out with a tour of the Eiffel Tower! We went ALL the way up, which was crazy!!!! But cool. Unfortunately it was fairly cloudy/hazy so our view wasn't quite what it was supposed to be but at least it wasn't completely clouded out and we got to see a little bit.

After the tower we went to the Musee d'Orsay...which was my favorite place to visit the whole trip and I wish we had set aside more time for it! First of all, the building was a train station and they converted it into a museum so it was a super cool building! We spent most of our time there in the impressionist/post-impressionist galleries...we got to see works from Van Gogh, Manet, Monet, Sisley, Renoir....they were Amazing!!!! I absolutely loved it....seeing these famous works in person, I don't know, it was just so awesome!

After the museum we went over to the Paris Pantheon and then the Luxembourg Gardens. Super pretty and a nice way to just chill and relax our last afternoon. :)

And here's our trip through my iphone! :) :) :) sorry some of them uploaded out of order. I'm too lazy to fix it ;) 

we didn't tell her til we were on our way to the airport that we were going :) 

you can BARELY see the Eiffel Tower here :) 

Late night crepe after our plane ride!

OH MY GOODNESS....the pastries here...SERIOUSLY SO GOOD!!!

YUMMY quiche!

me and the Mona lisa!!!!

She LOVES the Eiffel Tower!

French Onion Soup! SO YUMMY!

we randomly ran into a family that goes to our school! :) 

probably the BEST Mousse I've ever had! It was a MASSIVE bowl too...we couldn't eat it all!!!