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After taking an easy train ride from Heidelburg, we arrived in Paris mid-afternoon and easily found our hotel. We had picked a cute little place called "Hotel Du Lys" on Rue Serpente, which I think was recommended by our Lonely Planet. It turned out to be a great location, as we were very central and only a short walk to Notre Dame.
Shortly after arriving in Paris, both Gordon and I fell in love with the food. We discovered crepes on one of our first days, and spent almost every day after trying a new flavor (my favorite was a lemon-raspberry one). The first day we walked over to Notre Dame and then spent the day wandering around the city. We ended up walking all around this little island in the middle of Paris (Ile de la Cite I think), and hanging out by the river.
The second day, we woke up relatively early and got in line for St Chapelle. We had tried to see it the day earlier, but we got in line too late, and they closed at 5pm. The wait is totally worth it to see St Chapelle - the stained glass windows on the second floor are stunning. They depict scenes of Christ, and are absolutely massive. We spent a long time just staring! After leaving St Chapelle, we took the metro over to Montmarte and walked up to see the views of the city. It's interesting that Paris is so grey ... everything is this kind of depressing tones of grey (probably also influenced by the cloudy weather that day).
We stopped by the Arc de Triompe (interesting, because it had De Gaulle's declaration of the formation of the exiled French government during WWII). After the Arc de Triompe, we made our way to the Louvre. The outside is definitely spectacular with the glass pyramid framing the entrance. Gordon could have spent a ton more time inside, but I hated the immense crowds (seriously, trying to see the Mona Lisa was like Coney Island) and so we didn't end up spending much time inside.
Funnily enough, Gordon and I went to check out on what we thought was our last night, only to find out we were a day off and weren't expected to check out for another day! Gordon claims he made a "classical programming mistake" ... something about a +1 error ... but basically we ended up with an unexpected extra day in Paris! It was great, because we spent it seeing everything we thought we couldn't fit into the first days.
One of our favorite gardens ended up being the Jardin de Luxembourg, where we stopped a couple times to eat breakfast and/or lunch (usually baguettes and cheese we picked up).
For one of our day trips we ventured out to Versaille - the gardens were not anything special. They are immense, but not as well maintained, or landscaped as other palaces we had both seen. The inside though is amazing. We opted for the guided tour, and got to see a bunch of the palace rooms - including the hall of mirrors, where Gordon tells me some famous treaty was signed.
Naturally, we ended our trip with the Eiffel Tower. We had seen it from afar the night before when we took a river cruise (spectacular at night, but freezing in April) and decided to return in daylight. It is an amazing sight (again, packed with tourists) but worth taking the elevator to at least the first level to see the 360 degree views of Paris. Very romantic :)
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