My Most Excellent European Adventure, Day 4: Lost in Paris

Sunday, April 2011
Paris, France

Today we got up early (but not as early as planned because our alarm didn't go off). We dropped off our bags in the hotel lobby and set off to do some sight seeing in Paris. We first went to a church called Saint Chappelle. It had the most beautiful stained glass windows I have ever seen. The whole length and height of the walls were colorful windows. Most of them were upstairs after a walk up a narrow, winding staircase. Once we got to the top and entered the room, it quite literally took my breath away.

Outside St. Chappelle

Gorgeous! Inside St. Chappelle

After this church, we decided to walk to Notre Dame. Along the way, we just had to stop here for breakfast:

Crepes in Paris on a Sunday morning... Does it get any better?

I have been to Notre Dame before, but today as we walked inside (it's free!) they were just starting mass - yes, it was Sunday. I have never seen mass before so it was interesting to see at least part of it. We walked around the perimeter while mass was going on in the middle. How strange and interesting to go to church while tourists are walking around your chapel.

If you haven't seen mass before, you can see about 60 seconds of the beginning here until my camera died...

After Notre Dame, we split up. Angela and I went to find a mall while Heidi and Betsy went to do some more sight seeing. Angela and I soon found out that no clothing shops are open on Sunday (here I thought that happened only in Provo!) Sad. It was the thing Angela really wanted to do on our trip. I was just looking for a new pair of jeans since two of the three pairs I packed now had holes in them (after 4 days? How much walking have we done?) So we went to look around elsewhere. We walked along the Seine, went to the Louvre. We didn't go inside, just sat out by the pyramid for a while. Then we got some food and walked to a nearby park and ate. It was so nice today - at least mid 70's.

Angela was mourning the fact that H&M was closed

Angela looking cute on the Seine

Contemplation on the Seine

 

A beautiful day at the Louvre. I wonder if Tom Hanks is searching for the Holy Grail nearby...

I will triomphe!! Ironically, just minutes later we triumphed and found an H&M that was open!

Once we found the H&M  (on the Champs Elysees) Angela was in shopping mode. By this time we had half an hour to get back to the hotel and meet with Heidi and Besty to get our bags, and take a taxi to our car. Angela was not ready to go so I left to go meet Heidi and Betsy at the hotel and Angela would just take the metro out to the parking lot we our car was. Only I could not find the hotel once I got off the metro. I walked around for about 45 minutes. By this time I was over an hour late. It was a little bit scary, not being able to contact anyone to let them know where I was or try to find my way to them. It helped a lot that I can speak some French, but no one seemed to know the street our hotel was on, let alone the hotel itself. I finally got a taxi that got me there and then we took another taxi to meet Angela at the parking lot. Quite an ordeal and I was a little scared for a while but thankfully we all got where we needed to be. Once we were in our car we drove for about 4 hours (lots of traffic getting out of Paris) and made it safely to our hotel in Trier at about 9:30. Cool hotel! Our room is like a little suite and we had no problems finding it at all. A few minor hiccups/scares aside, another fantastic day. We have been really lucky with the weather and hope it continues. As they say in German "gut fahrt" (good drive). I am a little sad to leave France. It was fun to be able to use my French. It came in very handy several times. None of us speak any German, could be very interesting...

My Most Excellent European Adventure, Day 3: Here in the slums of St. Michel

Saturday, April 9
Mt. Saint Michel, Giverny, Paris

Another road warrior day! We went ot Mt. St. Michel this morning. LOTS of stairs, HUGE abbey, beautiful view of the causeway (mostly quicksand!). Perfect weather today. Again. I have been here before in high school, but I definitely appreciated it more as a more mature adult... There truly is no place like it in the world. When you first get there, you walk up these narrow streets with LOTS of stairs and LOTS of shops to get 200 feet up to the abbey.

View from the top!

Once at the abbey, you can buy a ticket to tour inside. It was incredible!

Getting down was a bit tricky...

Thanks to this scaffolding we had to risk death to navigate...

After that we drove to a different military cemetary since we didn't make it to the one yesterday at Omaha Beach. It turned out to be amazing! We were the only ones there and it was so quiet and peaceful. A nice change after a busy morning.

There was a small chapel at the cemetary

One of my favorite things at this cemetary was the interior of the chapel. It amazed me how much honor and tribute France feels toward the American soldiers in WWII. I had no idea that there were so many American military cemetaries in Northern France.

This is a map inside the chapel showing the breach from Normandy across France

After paying our respects and feeling patriotic, we set off again to drive to Giverny (about a 2 hour drive). This is where Monet lived and painted Waterlilies. Beautiful gardens, ponds, and flowers. It was packed - we had to wait 45 minutes to get in- but I think it was worth it.

This was Monet's house

Look like a familiar
painting???

After Giverny, we drove another 2 hours to Paris. Crazy driving! Poor Betsy drew the short stick and drove us in to the city (really we made her) and we spent an hour just trying to find the hotel. Our original plan was to park outside of the city and take the metro to the hotel, but after our first parking attempt, we walked for a block and thought we could try driving in. Besty said she wasn't afraid. I would have been... But over an hour later, 2 unsuccessful phone calls to the hotel and no close parking to be found, we couldn't find the hotel or parking anywhere. We finally parked out of the city and took a taxi in. Relief. We were grateful to get there. It was a little stressful, but a fun day. When we got to the hotel we went to get dinner and came back to the room for bed. It is now about midnight. Got to get ready for another busy day tomorrow.

My Most Excellent European Adventure, Day 2: Road Warriors

Friday, April 8
Brussels, Rouen, Honfleur, Bayuex, Omaha Beach, Mont St. Michel


Today we were road warriors! We had breakfast at the Passey's home (we were introduced to Speculoos: a cinnamon-y, peanut buttery type spread for toast = yummy!) We left the house about 8:30 for about a 3 hour drive to Rouen, France. This is the town where Joan of Arc was held, tried, and killed. It was the most beautiful cathedral - so huge and tons of stained glass windows.

Stained glass, anyone??

The ladies of the Cathedral

We ran into 2 missionaries from Utah! One from American Fork and one from Riverton. They seemed to excited to see someone from home and they gave us great directions and information about the town. Such an amazing and quaint town. It had a very medieval feel to it.

From Rouen, we drove about an hour to a little town Beth told us about called Honfleur. Such a cute little town by the water. Lots of shops, a proper French carousel, and cobblestone streets.

We didn't spend a lot of time there - so much to do and so little time. We drove for about another half hour to Bayeux to see their famous tapestries that tell the story of William the conqueror. We had an audio guide that told us the story as we walked along.The tapestry was about 3 feet tall and about 70 feet long. Pretty spectular! If you remember the beginning of Robin Hood: Price of Thieves, they show the tapestry during the title credits.

Bayeux tapestry museum

Had a delicious Croque Monsieur for dinner here.

After that we had about another 40 minute drive to Normandy/Omaha beach. We wanted to to the American cemetary, but it closed 2 hours earlier (note- if you ever want to go to a lot of museums in one day, remember that they usually close at 5:00). Betsy was pretty sad. We all really wanted to go, but this was the most important part of the trip to Betsy. In order to ease the pain, we drove to Omaha Beach. It was really amazing! There was virtually nobody there and it was so quiet and peaceful. We stayed for about an hour. Amazing to see and reflect on such a historical, meaningful place.

We saw 2 men who were here on business from Alabama- they told us they had just gone to Mt. Saint Michel and loved it. We are going there tomorrow. Can't wait! We drove by it tonight on our way to our hotel in Beauvoir, It;s about 3 minutes away from Mt. Saint Michel so we drove back and took some pictures

Gorgeous!

I drove from Rouen and for the rest of the day. First international driving experience, also it was a stick shift. Did pretty well. Pretty impressive, I thought! We found all of our destinations with nothing but a little detour. It was so fun to spend the day driving through the French countryside. Beautiful, sunny, gorgeous, Spring day.

My Most Excellent European Adventure, Day 1

April 6/7, 2011

Salt Lake/Brussels

Here's the aforementioned promise of my Europe adventure. I wrote in my journal each day and rather than try and remember all the details, I'll just transcribe.

I'm off again for my third trip to Europe. This time I'm with m y roommate Heidi VanNatter and two friends Angela Day and Betsy Ferguson. Betsy and Heidi met a family from Texas who live in Brussels (he works for the state department) last year on a cruise and they were nice enough to let us stay with them. We left at about 10:30 in the morning (happy birthday to me) and had a layover in New York and then landed in Brussels at 9:00 local time (1 am to us). What a long flight!! It was fine but poor Angela got a little sick. Dave Passey (whose house we are staying at) was kind enough to meet us at the airport and give us their GPS to use in our awesome Volvo rental. We went back to their house, unpacked a bit and walked to the bank to to get some euros (without Angela - she was still a little under the weather ). Poor Heidi, her bank had a little mix up and wouldn't let her withdraw any cash - she called them and apparently gave them what for because it's all straightened out now. Then we walked to the market (Heidi used a little French to get directions) to get some sprite for Angela's stomach. And of course a Diet Coke for me!!

We walked back to the house, dropped off the sprite to a sleeping Angela, and the three of us drove into the city to see a military museum Dave told us about and walked to the top of the Arch cinquantenaire, with the assistance of an elevator. It's always nicer to take an elevator to see a spectacular view. It was so amazing. The weather was beautiful, a perfect spring day.

View from the top of the arch

Cinquantenaire Arch

We then drove back to the Passey's and CRASHED! Not in a vehicular fashion, but we were exhausted! Dave made us a nice dinner and then we watched some America's Next Top Model (yeah!) with the kids and went to bed. Such a long day but it is so great to be here again. We have some fun things planned and I know we'll see some amazing and unforgettable sight we'll remember forever.

*some funny moments from the day:

PUSH, don't pull the door at the bank a (apparently we didn't understand the directions for the door in another language)

Betsy falling up the stairs at the museum

Getting a little lost on the way to the market and asking for directions in French

Killing a big, Belgian spider in our room