After 18 baguettes, 37 Cappuccinos, 100 miles of walking EACH, we’re on our way back home!
If you’d like to see pictures of our trip, check out http://www.flickr.com/photos/94726206@N08/sets
Today (Friday) is our last day in Paris…such a bittersweet day! This morning we decided we would walk around St. Germain En Laye, check out the market in the square, and buy some last minute items. We strolled by a chocolate store and decided to peek in for a second. Greatest decision we could have made. We taste tested a praline chocolate as well as a chocolate with caramel infused with lime. The praline chocolate was super delicious but the lime one was to die for! After that, we knew we had to buy something. We left the store with satisfied little tummies. This was before breakfast by the way.
We finished our shopping and ate a quick breakfast in town and headed back to the house to drop off the chocolates. We rested at the house for a little bit before heading into Paris. We stopped at the Louvre to get some pictures. Our trip was not long enough to fully visit the Louvre – that will have to wait until next time. We walked through the gardens in front of the Louvre and took in the beauty of the blooming tulips and luxurious fountains.
Our destination was not far – the Musee de l’Orangerie. We walked around the museum. I (Anna) could have stayed in Monet’s water lily room for hours upon hours. The museum has two oval rooms with 8 works by Monet in total. They’re absolutely breathtaking. We finished with the museum around 5:30 and headed back to our guest house in St. Germain En Laye.
We arrived around 6:00 and had dinner in town. One final French meal followed up with cappuccino’s was just what we needed to round out the trip.
Tomorrow means back to the states. We’ll be sad to leave this place behind.
We started off Thursday early with a ride on the Metro to the Sacre Coeur an old church that sits on the highest point in Paris. We were warned that the street vendors in this area were aggressive and we noticed the street vendors grabbing people’s wrists to put on bracelets and not letting go until they paid.
On our walk up the steps to the church a street vendor grabbed my (Rich’s) wrist and wouldn’t let go. I looked at him and said “No” but he wouldn’t let go. I was about to unleash 14 years of MMA training on him. Fortunately for him, he realized I was serious and let go. I understand these people are trying to make a living but many of them will pick your pockets while selling you goods. They also destroy the local economy that pays the funds to maintain the tourist attractions.
After that near incident we made it to the Sacre Coeur without a hitch. There was no line and very few tourists so we were able to walk through the church pretty quickly. We toured the crypt which was quite dark and a bit creepy and then climbed the 300 steps to the top of the Sacre Coeur. The 360 degree, panoramic view of Paris was amazing! We spend about a half our looking over the city and taking pictures before climbing back down. (pictures)
Once down, we walked around the town and stopped at the local shops before getting a bite to eat. For lunch, I had steak tartar (raw hamburger meet topped with raw egg). It was a meal I had wanted to try and finally found a place that looked like it served fresh steak tartar. It’s odd eating raw meat but the flavor and texture were great! I couldn’t help but think about all the raw hamburger meat I pressed at Bill Gray’s which didn’t help but I am sure the meat here is fresher. Or at least I hope so.
After lunch we took the Metro to Notre Dame. This place was packed so we decided to take pictures from the outside only. We walked around for a bit and stopped at a memorial dedicated to French citizens who were killed and deported to concentration camps during World War II. (pictures)
We took the Metro back to our guest house and rested up for a bit before heading back out to Paris for dinner. We ate dinner at a fancy restaurant next to the Eiffel Tower. The weather was nice enough to allow us to eat outside. The food was amazing and our view of the Eiffel tower made the evening special.
We finished dinner around 11pm and walked to the Eiffel Tower. We purchased tickets and road the elevators to the top. We arrived at the top just before 12am and were able to enjoy a great view of the Champs Elysees while the Eiffel Tower lit up with hundreds of sparkling lights midnight. It was quite easily our favorite moment in Paris. We departed the Eiffel Tower for our last time and hopped on the Metro for our hour long ride back home. (pictures)
Wednesday we got a little bit of a late start. Since we were either walking or standing almost all day yesterday, we were exhausted! We had breakfast, sat outside the main house to get some Wifi and then headed into the city. Our first stop was The Champs Elysees and The Arc de Triomphe (pictures). We walked up and down The Champs Elysees for quite a while – it was probably good that today was Labor Day and most of the stores were closed because I may have been tempted to buy something at Cartier or Louis Viutton. Yeah right. We stopped for cappuccinos and savory crepes for lunch before we finished gazing at the latest and greatest cars by Toyota. At the end of the Champs Elysees sits the Arc de Triomphe – put there by Napoleon. Again, another stellar piece of architecture here in France!
We took the Metro to the Eiffel Tower stop and got off there. We decided today would be an excellent day to take a boat tour down the Seine. We purchased our tickets at a vendor on the side of the street. As we were walking toward the river to the boarding station, we saw a small crowd on the side of the street clapping for a street magician. We glanced over to see what was going on. We heard police sirens and the magicians (a.k.a. pickpockets) scattered within a matter of moments. The guys near the Eiffel Tower selling knock off paraphernalia scattered as well. The cop jumped out of the car and started chasing one of the “magicians”. We didn’t stick around long enough to see what happened next. Too bad.
We headed to the loading area by the docks and waited only a few minutes before our boat arrived. We got prime seats up on the top deck in the front. This tour was by far one of the best ways to see the sites of Paris. We passed by the Eiffel Tower, The Louvre, Notre Dame, Musee D’Orsay , Pont Neuf and many other famous sites (Pictures).
We were both a little chilly following the cruise so we decided to stop for some crepes and cappuccinos…I mean just crepes. The restaurant we stopped at charged 7 Euro for a cappuccino!! That’s about 10 bucks for a small cappuccino. So instead we each got a dessert crepe and headed back to St. Germain En Laye.
We went into town for a few minutes to pick up some baguettes to go with dinner. This may not have been the best choice since it was pouring at this point, but you can’t have pasta Bolognese without a baguette! We both passed out and took an hour nap before dinner. It’s nice to have a quiet evening at the house and rest up for the rest of the week. Only 2 more full days here in Paris – and they will be busy!
Tuesday was our 2 year wedding anniversary!! I can’t believe it has been 2 years already – time really does fly by when you are having fun! We started off the day with breakfast and coffee and then headed on a bus to see Versailles. Not a bad start to an anniversary if I do say so myself.
Man was this place packed! Today was probably the worst day we could have chosen to visit Versailles – it was closed Monday and will be closed Wednesday due to Labor Day here in Europe. But with a short visit to Paris, we didn’t have many other days to choose from. We waited in line for over an hour just to purchase tickets. We finally received our tickets at around 11:00 and based on the advice of the lady behind the counter, we decided to see the Gardens and Marie Antoinette’s house first before heading into the Chateau.
The Gardens at Versailles were incredible. Massive statues, huge water fountains, and immaculate architecture covered the grounds surrounding the Chateau. There were about 30 different sites listed on the map, so we chose a handful we thought would be worth our while due to time constraints. And boy, were they. (Pictures)
We saw half the sites we wanted to and then took a short walk to Marie Antoinette’s house. I wouldn’t be opposed to having a home like this. (pictures)
We walked back to the Gardens to check out the other half of our hand selected sites to behold. Our favorite part was the Mirror Fountain. It played music in sync with the fountains. Someday we hope to have one of those in our backyard…someday. (pictures)
We finished the Garden tour and now it was time for the Chateau. Time to wait some more! The line had dropped significantly from this morning, but was still huge. We waited outside in the cold for about an hour and forty five minutes before we could enter. Despite the massive crowd waiting for us inside, it was totally worth the wait. (Pictures) We were able to see the King’s bed chambers, the Queen’s bed chambers, libraries, the room where the king entertained guests (no idea the precise name) and The Hall of Mirrors (definitely my favorite room!). (pictures)
We headed back home around 6:00 to get changed and ready and headed into Paris around 8:00. Eiffel Tower here we come! We decided we would walk instead of taking the elevator – walking up the Tower is way cooler anyway. We walked up to the first level and had a small dinner right there in the café. There is nothing sweeter than celebrating your 2 year wedding anniversary on the Eiffel Tower with your best friend. Priceless. (Pictures)
We decided we would come back later in the week to the Eiffel Tower so once dinner was over we headed back down. We decided to head home since it was getting late. I would say this was a pretty successful anniversary. I wonder where we will be a year from now?!
Monday we decided to sleep in and spend the day relaxing in St. Germain En Laye. We woke up around 9:00am and took a leisurely walk through the town. We stopped at a café for espresso and crepes with fresh squeezed orange juice (what else would you do on your first day in France?) After breakfast, we visited the local grocery store and pastry shop to pick up a few things for the week. We arrived back at our place and immediately dove into the fresh baked baguette topped with salami, chorizo and Comte cheese. The food here is so delicious and fresh. It’s tough to stop eating.
We spent most of the afternoon around the estate and our guest house planning the rest of our week in Paris (while eating Belgian chocolates and drinking coffee of course). The place is beautiful (pictures).
We went for another walk into town to pick up dessert and a bottle of French wine for dinner. Anna made pasta Bolognese which we ate along with our second French baguette. The bread here is AMAZING!
Since we carbo-loaded today, we thought it would be best to go on a third walk into town and take some pictures of our view of Paris during sunset (pictures).
We topped the day off with some French pastry desserts. Tomorrow, we visit Versailles and we’ll have to find a way to burn off all the calories we’ve eaten today.
We woke up around 8:30 on Sunday morning to Chris making us egg and cheese breakfast sandwiches on homemade biscuits. Our plan was to head to church in Leuven, grab a bite to eat and then walk through the town. We got ready and walked to their church and arrived around 10:00. ICEL, International Church of Evangelicals Leuven, is located in Hope College. Their services were pretty typical of ours…a few songs and then a sermon. In between songs, they had all of the children in the service come forward. The worship leader handed them each a small tambourine and all the kids worshipped up front with their instruments for one song. Once the song was over, a member of the church prayed for them and then they returned to their seats. That part of the service was my favorite.
We walked to a cute little café called Nosh after church and got a small brunch. Best bagel ever! We walked around Leuven for the rest of the afternoon. Leuven is a really cute town with the typical small streets and the cobblestone road. Food and cafes everywhere! After our walk through Leuven, we headed back to their apartment to pack all our stuff up and head into Brussels for a few hours. View pictures of our walk on flickr.
Brussels was packed! It was such a nice day so lots of crowds filled the streets. We walked around the city and saw the palace in the center and some other historical sites as well. We headed to where the food was after a short while because we were all starving. I swear all I am doing is eating and walking while we are here. Pretty great life if you ask me! We stopped for a bite to eat and then headed to get Belgian Waffles!!!! They were even better than we had imagined. Richie and I split one with Nutella, strawberries and whipped cream. They give you the smallest forks ever to eat it, so naturally, we ripped the waffle and dove in, eating with our fingers!
After the waffles, we walked down to see the “Peeing Boy” . Not really sure the history behind it but it represents some type of rebellion back in the day. Real specific I know J Believe it or not, there were loads of crowds taking pictures of him. Crazy tourists.
View our pictures of Brussels on flickr.
We headed back to where the car was parked to head to the train station. Chris and Kelly drove us to the station and we said our goodbyes. We had such a good time with them and look forward to when they are back in the states!
We waited about an hour in the station and then headed to our platform. It was a pretty uneventful hour and a half train ride. It had to be to make up for what was going to happen next. We arrived in Paris and had to buy our Metro tickets. We were directed to the machine to get our tickets, but it would not take our card. Super. We waited for someone to show up at the ticket counter, but they never did so we walked to the other end of the station and finally found someone sitting at a Ticket Information desk. We figured out where to go and made it to the platform with 10 minutes to spare. Phew! We hopped on to our train and headed to our first stop to switch trains. We arrived and made our train to our final destination, St. Germain en Laye – almost there! Or so we thought…
The train stopped at one of the stations on the way to our final destination as it had several times in the last 15 minutes. This time was different. It really stopped. The person running the train had made an announcement several minutes before the train stopped but since we don’t speak much French, we didn’t know what he said. We noticed that we were the only people still on the Metro and everyone else had left and taken another train. After waiting in the dark for 15 minutes, we realized that the man overhead told us to get off of this train and hop on the other to get to our destination. Holy crap we are going to die at a random Metro station outside of Paris! We got off the train and headed toward the exit. At this point, we are both a bit freaked out and were already half an hour late for Christian, our friend who was picking us up from our final train stop. After what seemed like an eternity but in fact was only another 3 minutes, another train came into the station. It was headed our way! Relieved, we hopped on the train and three stops later we arrived. Thank the Lord! Christian was there to pick us up and we headed to where we would be staying for the next week. We had some tea with Christian and Pascal and chatted about our plans for the week. We headed to bed around 12:15 AM – safe and sound in a cozy and comfy guest house.
We woke up Saturday rested and ready to tour Belgium. The previous night we (along with Chris and Kelly) decided that we would rent a car to visit Bastogne as taking public transportation would have taken us three hours while driving only one and a half. Chris and Kelly went for a run to pick the vehicle up while Anna and I walked around Leuven (pictures). It’s a beautiful little town with cobblestone streets lined with shops in old brick and stone buildings. A place I could see myself living for some time. Anna and I stopped at a café and ordered cappuccinos and then toured the town some more. By the time we got back, Chris and Kelly had the vehicle and were ready to head to Bastogne with us.
Kelly drove since she was the only one comfortable with stick-shift. The hour and a half drive allowed us to see much of the country side of Belgium. It’s a beautiful place with quite a bit of green farmland. The villages in Belgium, like much of Europe that we’ve seen, are compact and “efficient”. Not like the states where everything is spread out.
We finally arrived in Foy in the early afternoon. Those of you that know me, know that I am a huge Band of Brothers fan and a closet World War II geek. I have been looking forward to visiting Bastogne and particularly the Boise Jacque woods over-looking Foy since the first day of planning this trip to Europe. I almost talked ourselves out of the visit because of the hassle of transportation but I am glad I didn’t as it turned out to be one of my favorite parts of the trip.
Bastogne and nearby Foy are where my two favorite Band of Brothers episodes take place. I won’t go into the history here, but I encourage you to watch the DVD and read the memoirs of the men who fought in Bastogne in the bitter cold December and January months in 1945.
I brought a guidebook with me from the states that helped us identify historical landmarks. Our first stop was the Boise Jacque woods. We parked in Foy and walked an old logging road into the woods. It was eerie to see the foxholes dug by the men of Easy Company over sixty years ago (pictures) and it’s something I will never forget. As I stood there freezing with the wind whipping against my back, I couldn’t help but think of what it must have been like for the men who dug those foxholes in the cold winter for protection from the wind, enemy fire and exploding trees from enemy artillery.
We walked back to Foy from the woods, taking a similar path to what Easy would have taken when they attacked the town. We stopped at the church where “Shifty” Powers shot a German sniper out of the bell tower and took pictures of a nearby farmhouse which still had bullet holes on one of its sides.
From Foy, we drove to Bastogne and stopped to eat lunch before heading to the Five Point Memorial overlooking the town.
From Bastogne, we drove back to Leuven and enjoyed a very Belgian dinner at one of the local restaurants. Anna and I shared rabbit stew and ribs. The rabbit stew was great. The ribs were okay, but were much dryer than what you would expect back in the states. I enjoyed a Belgian beer with dinner and Anna had a red wine. In Europe, if you want water for dinner, you pay quite a bit as it always comes in a glass bottle. Sometimes it’s less expensive to buy a “real” drink. Also, no matter what drink you get, you don’t get free refills. That’s probably the toughest thing to get used to over here.
We finished the night watching the first episode of Band of Brothers while eating some Belgian Chocolates.
Friday was a pretty uneventful day. Exhausted from our London tour, we attempted to sleep in until 9:00am but our smoke detector went off at 8:30. We were up pretty quickly and shortly after being awoken, the noise stopped. We were up so we decided to pack early and head to the St. Pancras train station for our one 1:30 departure to Brussels. We chose to take a cabby to the station rather than fight the crowd at the tube stations. Riding the London underground is like heading to an airport where EVERYONE is late and NOBODY knows where they’re going. At St. Pancras, we stopped for coffee at Starbucks and waited for our train to arrive. We lugged our bags past the crowd and found a corner in the café to sit and relax with our lattes. Shortly after, an automated announcement came over the speaker “Please exit the building. This is an emergency.” We were a bit freaked out but didn’t have a clear path to the exit with our bags so we stayed put. A minute later a human announcer came and told us to ignore the message.
At 1:30pm we boarded our train and were off to Brussels, Belgium. We arrived and were met by our friend Kelly who took the train with us to Leuven. After arriving at the station, we had a 15 minute walk with our luggage to Kelly and Chris’ apartment. For the first time since we arrived in Europe, we had rain. It was refreshing after being in the sun all day in London, and as for the walk, we’ve grown quite accustom to walking everywhere.
We decided to go out to a local Italian restaurant for dinner. The rain had stopped so the walk was dry. It was my first experience being in a place where no one spoke English. Communication was actually much easier than I had expected.
Side note, Belgium has three national languages: French, German and Dutch. Many people also speak English because Brussels is the home of the European Union.
For dinner, I had the best pizza I’ve ever eaten. Italian pizzas have very thin crusts and strong flavors. I had prosciutto, onions and salami on top of pizza sauce and cheese.
We walked back to Chris and Kelly’s apartment through the village and finished the night with a home-made hot chocolate from Kelly.
No pictures from today, but be sure to view pictures from our entire trip on flickr (click here)
Thursday we visited London – what a whirlwind day! It was the warmest day in London this year and it was gorgeous. We started the day with a walking tour and saw the changing of the guards – coolest thing ever! Our tour guide was phenomenal and took us on an hour and a half excursion before we hopped on The Original Tour bus to see the city. We saw Piccadilly Circus, The National Gallery, Trafalgar Square, St. James’s Palace, Ritz Hotel, Hyde Park, Westminster Abbey, Big Ben and Parliament, St Paul’s Cathedral (where Margaret Thatcher’s funeral was held), the Tower of London, & Kensington Palace among many other popular sites. Did you know that Sean Connery & Roger Moore who both played James Bond are neighbors in London?!
We ended the tour with evening pictures of Buckingham Palace followed by a traditional Fish and Chips dinner at The Sherlock Holmes Pub.