Vive Le France - Paris rules!European Trip - May 21, 22, & 23, 2002 |
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Below you'll see the pictures of the Seine cruise we went on. After we finished that, it was just becoming dusk, and as the river cruise we were on was based right off of the Eiffel Tower, we were afforded some amazing shots of the Eiffel Tower as the sky got darker and the lights came on. Very cool. We finally made our way back to the Hotel so we could eat and rest up for our last day in the city of lights. |
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Vive la France! |
Jason feeling French |
It's cold out here! When will it be sunny? |
Enjoying the cruise phones |
Not ready for the closeup |
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Yeah, have your people call my people! |
Still cold. |
Golden sunshine, finally! |
Some French dancers on the shore |
Pretty bridges of the Seine |
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Jason and Wendy and a tower of some sort |
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The sun breaks through for dusk |
Me and Eiffel Tower at dusk |
Jason and Wendy at dusk |
My sunset picture |
Jason's sunset picture |
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Eiffel Tower, looking up |
Bottom of the tower |
Dramatic dusk shot of the tower |
3 of us at Eiffel Tower |
Sunset through the tower |
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J&W at the tower |
3 of us again at the tower |
Amazing shot of Eiffel Tower from Rue Cler neighborhood |
Wendy waving from our room at the hotel |
Out of order pic - but it's of Wendy at a Rue Cler vendor, except for the bald guy in the way |
Day 2 was a helluva day - so Day 3 we decided to not be so ambitious and took on just a few small trips, or so we thought. Our first thing, after checking out of the hotel, was to go visit the Invalides, Napoleon's tomb. From there we made it to the Rodin museum and saw the Thinker among many others of Rodin's sculpture masterpieces. We then headed north and took the subway to the Isle d'Cite, which is the island on the Seine where the cathedral of Notre Dame sits. We went in and saw the inside, which is amazing, but when we tried to wait in the line for the towers, it just didn't move, so we decided to move on. We headed on up to the Pompidou Center area in search of you guessed it, the Picasso museum. Like I said, if there was a Picasso museum in town, we were there! We eventually found it after navigating through the tricky Parisian streets. We also found a great pastry shop that had some chocolate desserts to die for! We then were so tired but didn't have a hotel to go back to, so we killed time by going to the Forum des Halles, which is the area near the hotel I stayed at almost 8 years ago with my parents. We ended up playing cards in the park off of the cathedral of St Eustache, a near copy of Notre Dame without the two towers. We then decided to go to a restaurant in the Rue Cler, and we ended up at Cafe Rousillon early enough to beat the crowd, which DID show up. In the meantime, we all got thrashed on red wine, which was for the best, as we ended up in steerage again as we boarded a train for Munchen, Deutschland! But more on that later. Paris ruled! I highly recommend this city to everyone - the Parisians did not show any rudeness that you wouldn't find in any city environment. I discovered as long as you tried to converse in French, you would get much better help and attitude than if you just started speaking English to them. Let that be a lesson to all you would-be travelers! |
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The Invalides |
Invalides from Eiffel Tower stairs |
More Invalides dome goodness |
Invalides and Hobie from Rodin museum |
Jason near the Invalides chapel |
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Emotional Jason and Invalides dome |
Napoleon's tomb |
Inside the soldier's chapel at Invalides |
Me outside the Rodin museum, looking French |
The Thinker, at the Rodin Museum |
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Not thinkers |
Getting refreshed at the Rodin museum garden cafe |
Rodin gardens (much smaller than Versailles) |
Some sculpture |
Holy Quasimodo! It's Notre Dame! |
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Chilling at Notre Dame |
Jason at Notre Dame |
Inside the church |
The rose stained glass window |
Me and Joan of Arc again |
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I almost got in the picture |
Our finds from the bakery |
Picasso museum alert |
The sign |
Must be Picasso |
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Some more Picasso |
Playing cards outside St Eustache |
I'm happy because I always win |
Long distance view of the slaughter |
St Eustache park |
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Our final dinner was here at Cafe Rousillon |
Another picture of the sign
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Drunk Jason |
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Drunk Hobie |
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Tipsy Hobie in Paris subway |
Wendy the designated mapreader |
Amazingly, we made it to the train station on time (and at all)! |
Sleeping on my bunk going to Munich |
Wendy in her cubby |
Shoot me an email if you have any comments!
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