Paris: Notre Dame and the Louvre

For Christmas, and to celebrate our fifteenth anniversary this year, Mike surprised me with a trip to Paris. What a guy!

As soon as we arrived at the airport, we purchased a museum pass and hopped on the Roissey Bus, which is an easy and inexpensive way to get into the city. It runs from the airport to the Opera, which was extra convenient for us, as that was where our hotel was located. Once at the Opera, we could have taken the metro to a different part of the city, if we'd needed to. We mostly walked while we were there, because how often do you get to walk the beautiful streets of Paris, right? But there were a couple of rainy days where we rode the metro. The metro was easy to navigate (our Streetwise Paris map included a good metro map) and always felt safe.

Our first destination, after a quick nap to revive us from the post red-eye haze, was Pont Neuf and Notre Dame on Ile de la Cite.

I was going to have Mike pose for me, but these cute girls were doing such a great job that I snapped them instead.

Paris is just as pretty as you think it'd be. While the trees were budding and flowers were everywhere, it was cold! I was severely ill-equipped for the weather (one of these days I'll invest in a good coat) and ended up layering almost all of the clothes I brought for the trip everyday. Every Parisian I saw really was wearing a scarf and the women completely lived up to their reputation of being effortlessly chic. It was awe-inspiring, actually. They seemed so comfortable with themselves, and so confident, too. I saw lots of natural faces with bold lips, lots of messy, unbrushed hair, lots of oversized coats, and hardly any blue jeans. Next time I go, I'm only bringing black clothes. :)

After a quick walk-through of Notre Dame, we found a baguette sandwich in the Latin quarter, then walked to the Louvre, which was open late that night. Our museum pass covered our admission and helped us skip the line to purchase tickets.

It goes on forever! There is so much to see, and it could have felt really overwhelming. But we stuck to the highlights (like the Mona Lisa and Winged Victory) and just tried our best to take in the general ambience of being in the world's largest, most beautiful museum.

But after a while, we were beat. Our red-eye flight was catching up with us. We made it back to our hotel (across the street from the Opera) just after dark and promptly crashed into bed.