Au revoir Paris!

Bittersweet to wake up today knowing it was our last day here of a wonderful adventure that we will tuck away and pull out memories from for years to come.  We finally went back to our neighborhood boulangerie and got two of those big beautiful chocolate croissants for breakfast and a cafe au lait, oh yeah.

We chose today to visit The Paris Catacombs, a sobering way to start the day to be sure.  The catacombs were created at the end of the 18th century after Paris' largest cemetery was closed for public health reasons which required the removal of the human remains.  Over six million Parisiens from all of the city's cemeteries were moved to the catacombs and their bones were first just dumped, then later somewhat categorized in an orderly fashion, forming a decorative facade with the sculls and long bones, behind which the remaining bones were piled in a heap in disused limestone quarries in the Tombe-Issoire district.  The catacombs are 20 meters below ground (138 spiral steps) and the bones are stacked in 780 meters of corridors.  Really hard to describe but, as you can imagine, quite gruesome as well as a reminder that this equaled the number of those exterminated in the Holocaust.

We definitely needed a pick-me-up after that so headed back to one of our favorite areas, St. Michel, where we wandered the streets, shopped and ate at our last cafe (sigh) where we enjoyed some great Italian fare.  Stayed and read our books there for awhile and enjoyed the street scenes and some entertainment, then off for gelato at a place where they form it into roses in the cones.  Yum!

St. Michel

St. Severin church, in St. Michel

Yum!

Back to pack and get ready to leave in the morning.  We decided to stay here and repeat a dinner we had earlier in the week of risotto and penne pasta with a four cheese sauce for Karli.  More yum!  We have loved every minute of our adventure and are so grateful to everyone who made it possible for us to have this time together.  Looking forward to coming back home to family and friends and the familiar though.  Start off flying to Madrid, then on to Chicago!  See you soon,

Kelly & Karli

Nous avons des amis!!

Bonsoir!

This morning we went to the Chateau de Versailles, which was amazing! We took about 1,000 pictures but our absolute favorite part was the Hall of Mirrors. I could easily imagine kings and queens and members of the court walking up and down the hall going about their day or attending a grand event there.

The top of the front gate

Gate and Palace

Hall of Mirrors

Queen's Bedchamber

A small part of the vast gardens

On the way back to the train to Paris we stopped at McDo, or rather I dragged my mom to McDo :) It was pretty great because there were ordering touch screens in 5 languages plus French so we could order our food and pay in English on the screen and then just pick it up from the counter. Delicious!

Later, we traveled to see our friends Ben and Elisa!! It was so great to see familiar faces and have people to talk to besides each other (no offense Mom). After dinner at Chez Paul near the Bastille we traveled to the l'Ile de Saint-Louis for some of the best ice cream I've ever had. It's a special kind called Berthillon and it is heavenly. From there we crossed over to the l'Ile de la Cite and watched a fiery performance in front of Notre-Dame. Wow! The three performers included a girl who hula-hooped with a fire hoop, a man who breathed fire, and another man who twirled strings with fire ends like a glow stick show, and finished by lighting the ends with sparklers and mini fireworks. Hard to describe, but way cool. After that we wandered around Saint-Michel and saw some vibrant nightlife. Thanks so much for showing us authentic Paris, Elisa!

La Seine at sunset

Ben and Elisa

I must add that unfortunately my camera battery was exhausted during our visit, so there aren't a lot of pictures to show :(

Tomorrow is our last full day in Paris, I can't believe it! I think we'll be ready to be home but it has definitely been the trip of a lifetime. In a word-- incroyable!

Until then,

Karli and Kelly

Montmartre & Montparnasse

One day is just better than the next.  Today we went a little farther afield to the 18th arrondissement of Montmartre and the Basilique du Sacre-Coeur. Sacre-Coeur is located at the summit and highest point of Paris so you can pretty much overlook the whole city when you're up there.  Amazing.  It's a beautiful church from the outside as you can see, no pics were allowed inside but it has a mosaic of Jesus that is huge and breathtaking to see.  Spotted another bride and groom today, guess getting married on a Monday is not unusual?

Sacre-Coeur

View from the steps

Another happy couple :)

Montmartre I must say has been my favorite in terms of streets and feel of authentic Paris the way I pictured it to be.  We had lunch at a lovely cafe and sampled our first crepes, mine with chorizo sausage and cheese and egg and Karli with just cheese, of course.  We didn't take as many pictures today because I think we were just taking it all in.  Did a lot of walking, stopped at a park to read our books for awhile and did some shopping.

Yummy dejeuner!

Paris has the coolest doors, here's a set from Montmartre

We then headed to the Montmartre Cemetery which is completely indescribable.  The cemetery is built below street level in the hollow of an old quarry, dates back to the late 1800s and is the final resting place of many famous artists including Degas.  It is incredibly enormous and the monuments are jam-packed together as far as the eye can see.  It is both sobering and somehow inspiring and a reminder of today being Memorial Day for our country when we saw so many fallen for France today as well in the defense of their homeland. 

Ended the day with a little exploration of our own neighborhood of Montparnasse in the 15th arrondissement which we hadn't really walked at all.  Much more of a neighborhood feel and found a Pizza Hut, a very busy Pizza Hut within a block from us, crazy.  Ate dinner at Le Toucan, met some people from Minnesota that just arrived, that was fun, stopped at a boulangerie for fresh from the oven baguette, actually banette (a little smaller), plan to stop back in the morning for what looked like very huge, very yummy chocolate croissants.  Then looks like we'll be off to the Palace at Versailles tomorrow and dinner with friends from home tomorrow night.

Our neighborhood Pizza Hut

Yes, this is a Mercedes-Benz taxi cab-- craziness!

By the way, we really miss all of you back home and love your e-mails and comments. 
A bientot!

Kelly & Karli

Belle Paris!

Wow, what a day! It started out with another delicious breakfast including chocolate croissants, my new favorite. Then we headed to Notre-Dame for international mass. This was an amazing experience and included one reading and one prayer in English. I love how the consistency of mass services helped us to understand what was going on even though we weren't understanding all the words. The image of hundreds of people all worshiping together in such a remarkable cathedral will be forever in my memory.

West doors

Stained glass rosette

The nave

From Notre-Dame we took the metro to the Place de la Concorde. In the center stands the oldest monument in Paris, an over 3,000 year old Egyptian obelisk given to France in 1829, arriving in 1833. The obelisk now stands on the location of the guillotine during the French revolution where thousands of people were executed including King Louis XVI and Queen Marie Antoinette.

This once marked the entrance to the Luxor Temple in Egypt

From the Place de la Concorde, we began to stroll down the famous Champs-Elysees toward l'Arc de Triomphe. The Champs-Elysees is like Rodeo Dr., Michigan Ave, or 5th Ave, complete with designer stores and cafes. We stopped at a cafe for a delicious lunch, sorry for not taking pictures, it was too yummy to wait. At the end of the street stands l'Arc de Triomphe which honors fallen soldiers.

l'Arc de Triomphe et les Champs-Elysees

To end the day we decided to finally see le Tour Eiffel! Wow! My mom and I took over 40 photos of the Eiffel Tower, but picked only a few for you to see here. We got delicious ice cream cones and sat in the grass along with a multitude of other people to watch as the tower lit up. Every hour on the hour, the Eiffel Tower not only glows, but sparkles with a flurry of random lights. Apparently, all the lights cost over 4.5 million Euro! Here's a progression from day to night:

My mom took this-- couldn't it be our very own postcard?

Sunset, pre-lights

Glow

Sparkle

From the rooftop bar of our hotel

Definitely one of the best days so far. :)
Bonsoir!

Karli and Kelly

Wedding Crashers

Bonjour mes amis!  We decided to have somewhat of a chill day today since it was a very late night.  Slept in and headed out from our little home here in Montparnasse around lunch time. 

From inside a Metro station

Hit the Latin Quarter and rue Mouffetard, which is one of the busiest street there with lots of cafes and shops and people.  It's still very warm here although we hear it's supposed to get up to 96 there on Monday, wow!  Found a sidewalk cafe for a late lunch of salade avec jambon et fromage and a fabulous bleu cheese ravioli with more wonderful bread, Sorry no pics, it's all in our tummies.  Wandered the shops, I tried out my pathetic French but people were nice and we found some beautiful scarves. 

Sur la rue Mouffetard

We turned a corner and happened upon one of many old gorgeous churches, Saint Etienne du Mont, and of course had to step inside.  We heard music as we opened the door and, quel surprise, there was a wedding going on!  We stayed through the ceremony and lovely singing and took pics as the happy couple walked back down the aisle to wedded bliss.  So fun!

St. Etienne du Mont

Beautiful bride and her husband, Peter

Gotta love weddings!!

Decided to walk to the Sorbonne and see where the intellects have studied for hundreds of years.  Stopped to read our romance novels and soak up some of the knowledge by osmosis, right?  We hung out at another cafe for awhile at the Place de la Sorbonne with fountains and laughing children and dogs and pretty girls, so very French.  Then on our way back, got some cheese and wine and a baguette to enjoy later. 

Place de la Sorbonne

Karli with groceries

Another wonderful day in Paris. May try to make a service at Notre Dame tomorrow, stay tuned!

Kelly & Karli