The City of Lights Indeed

Eiffel Tower shots...
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Our first full day in Paris started with a bus tour through the city. Our tour guide was an upbeat woman who really got us all excited for what was to come as we followed her and her frog umbrella on and off the bus.

Our first stop was at a Perfume museum by the Opera house, an unexpected stop, but new experience nonetheless. Our tour guide was apparently a member of the museum and had a great passion for perfume and wanted to share it with us. We got to see the history of perfume all around the world, how it's made, how it's designed and the privileged few who owned it throughout time. At the end of the tour we were given the opportunity to mix scents and design our own perfumes, but they were relatively expensive so I decided to save my money for some French Art!

Definitely a city for those in love...

French espresso...
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I tried to keep notes throughout the tour while still enjoying the passing sights. I wrote down a few fun little facts, such as baguettes only last for one day because they aren't made with preservatives- the reason why they have the taste they do.

Our first major stop of the day was a beautiful view of the Eiffel Tower. A lot of people ventured directly to the crepe stands, but I wanted pictures and espresso! We all got together and took group photos as well as individual photos and then I got my first French espresso to give me energy for the day- wow, was it strong! It was delicious and managed to keep me awake way longer than I needed to, nothing like Starbucks (much better actually).

The Eiffel Tower at night...
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Our tour continued past the River Seine and many street vendors and the bus let us off at a handsome statue of Michel de Montaigne, the great French Renaissance thinker and essayist- where I rubbed his foot for good luck!

Our tour guide walked with us from this point to the famous Gothic Notre Dame Cathedral which was astounding to say the least.We all hopped on the spot in front so that we will come back to Paris! It is supposedly the spot that is the exact geographic center of the city. Inside the Cathedral was even more amazing than outside, and considering I didn't get to go into Westminster Abby, this was my first European Cathedral, and a great way to start! The stained glass lit up the entire place with every color of the rainbow- some were just designs whereas others depicted religious history. It was neat to think that this is where Quazimoto supposedly inhabited the bell tower... and here I am right there.

down champs elysees...
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At this point we were set free to see what we could do on our own- I don't know if it would be physically possible to see more than I did this day. We left the cathedral and headed down the River Seine where we peaked in at the local vendors along the river and I bought some postcards to send home and scrapbook with at a later date. We continued down the river and walked all the way up champs elysees to the Arc de Triomphe. We saw the tomb of the unknown soldier and decided we were going to make the climb to the top- 284 stairs later I had gotten a little workout and had an amazing view of Paris.  This spot was practically the city center as all the main streets stemmed away from the base of the site. The traffic at the bottom was crazy and entertaining to watch from this view and the Eiffel Tower was in the distance.

Notre Dame Cathedral...
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Next up we were told we needed to visit Sacre Coeur- so back to the metro we went. I had never even heard of the Sacre Coeur Cathedral before, but am really glad that I went. It sits atop a beautiful hill overlooking Paris from a side of the city. The Cathedral itself really didn't look like any others I had seen or would see throughout this trip- but was spectacular in its own right. We were told that the different style was because it was based off of the Romano-Byzantine architecture. No photos were allowed inside, but I have some amazing shots of the exterior. We climbed the many more stairs to enjoy the Cathedral and accompanying view at the top. After a tour round inside we continued to the little restaurants around the area. This is where I finally decided to break down and have my first crepe, mozzarella and tomato to be exact, and I was addicted.

view from halfway up the Eiffel Tower...
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We walked down through the surrounding area and saw a really neat public toilet which self cleaned in between uses. Dessy decided to use it because she couldn't wait until our next stop and almost got stuck as she was confused about when to come out- it started cleaning while she was in there!! We were all hysterically laughing "with" her, but she was actually rather upset, still entertaining though.

Our next stop was to join the whole group and Stan (our tourguide) for a cruise down the Rive Seine. We each got a little headset and could listen in many different languages or you could just listen to French music, I wanted to learn though so I tuned in for the English channel. All the way down the river there were bikers setting up camp in little tents which we were told they do as they travel through all of Europe via bike. Amongst the tents there were also quite a few couples cuddling along the river edge, it was a very romantic sight, making me want to come back here one day when I'm in love. The cruise let us off right in front of the Eiffel Tower which was our final stop for the day.

The Real World Cast under the tower...
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We went over as a group and because we were taking a group tour didn't have to wait in line- a great benefit that we would experience more throughout the trip as well. During our short wait for our tourguide to pick up our tickets we actually ran into the cast of the MTV show the Real World: Denver and took our pictures together (which they actually put on their website a few weeks later!). Finally, it was our time to go up and it was a great time of day considering it was about an hour before sunset as we started ascent up the Eiffel Tower. Even the tickets were pretty (definitely going in the scrapbook...). OK, so we start on our sideways journey up the leg of the Tower and the experience is much different than any other elevator I have ever been on, especially considering the floor is glass. At the midway point we are already way higher than I expected, but I'm not stopping here! Up I go! I actually got a little bit scared about halfway up the second leg as I looked down through the glass floor, but would have done it either way. I'm pretty sure I could see about all of Paris from the top. The fountains on the grounds below were beautiful and at this point the sun started to set and the sky let up a rosey-pink hue, to our left a group of people were playing soccer down below and we could barely identify that they were even people from this point! We located our hometowns around the top where it told the distances to home from that exact point- and realized I was quite a few thousand miles from home. The view included the Champs du Mars, Les Invalides and La Tour Montparnasse, wow. 1052 feet up and well worth the ticket and view in my opinion.

beautiful at night...
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We headed back down to the middle deck, but this time decided to do the walk to get the most of our experience. We stopped on the middle deck and watched the sun set over the city, a moment in which I wish I had someone to hug for the experience (definitely a city for those in love). However, with or without someone to love, still something I will never forget.

From the bottom we watched the tower Twinkle for the first ten minutes of the hour and then headed back to rest for another early morning.