Travelogue 5: Romantic Paris

Last you heard from us we were still comfortably situated in a beautiful cottage outside of London with my old roommate Tom and his wife Joanna. In the 7 days that have passed since then, we have slept in a train, a hotel, an airplane, an airport, a car, on the ground in a tent, and finally on a futon! The visiting is fun, but the traveling is making us very tired, to say the least.

So we'll give you another quick run-down of the most recent events in this "our trip around the world":

1. We left London on the Eurostar train headed for Paris that went in the Chunnel. Believe it or not, it actually would have been cheaper to fly, but we wanted the experience of going under the English Channel. Our take on the train: it's short, fast, and unbelievably hard on the ears. For some reason with every tunnel we entered and exited (and there were more than a few) our ears were shot with pain from a change in pressure.
2. Upon our arrival in Paris we were faced with the task of soaking in all of the sights in the less than 48 hours we had. Our first stop was the Louvre, the museum most famous for its display of the Mona Lisa. We were fortunate to find out that the museum closes on Tuesday so that we could just make it in on Monday afternoon. We tired out our legs and our necks looking at the ba-jillion pieces of art they have in that massive compound amidst the equally numerous tourist.
3. The next day, Tuesday, we made a whirlwind tour of the rest of the most famous places in Paris which include: Notre Dame Sacre Coeur (a beautiful basilica overlooking Paris on a nearby hill) and, of course...
4. ...the Eiffel Tower!!! We saw it in the day, at night, while having a picnic, underneath it, and we even climbed over 800 stairs to view the second level. Funny story - there are four entrances to get up the Eiffel (the four bases) and we got in one line which we found out was cash only. Unsure if we had enough on us, we left to a different line which we found out was "Stairs Only"! We had no choice but to climb the stairs to see the sunset over Paris. Despite being tired, it was a gorgeous view, especially when the lights lit up at the hour (see video below).

We stayed in a decent hotel while in Paris, which doesn't really explain the opening paragraph of this post, but don't worry, we're getting there. Once we got on a plane in Paris, everything that could go wrong, did go wrong. Thankfully, our time in Paris was memorable, and as the city is known for - romantic!!