Last October we took an amazing trip to Europe! Neither of us had ever been and planning this trip seriously was one of the most stressful things I have ever done! I had so much anxiety about it and had no clue what to do, where to go, etc. Planning a trip to Europe was seriously a full-time job, along with my real full-time job and deciding to repaint and decorate my main floor at the same time. Not a good combination. Especially for someone like me who literally CANNOT make a decision. Needless to say someday's I thought I was going to have a heart attack. It all worked out in the end of course and we had the trip of a lifetime.
A lot of people travel all over the world all the time - but for us two adult's working full-time jobs and doing numerous infertility treatments it has been hard to find the time to jet out of the USA for weeks at a time. This trip had been talked about for years and finally I was going to stop talking and start planning! I had researched things for a few months and thankfully had extremely helpful friends and family members who helped me plan, gave me input and sent me their past itineraries so I had somewhat of an idea of what to do. Even with months of research here and there, and some emails back and forth with people - this trip ended up being a somewhat last-minute thing. We didn't book our flights until about 3 weeks before we left and even then we still didn't have a solid plan. We decided to fly into Paris and out of Rome and do whatever we wanted in-between. We had planned to just rent a car and book hotels as we went. However, about a week before we left we realized that renting a car would be insanely expensive since we would have to rent it in France and return it in Italy so we decided to just take trains and get hotels booked beforehand so we didn't have to stress about where we were going to sleep that night and I am SO glad we did that. One of my main stresses when planning was trying to fit in everything we wanted to see but not being too rushed. We had to cut a few places out of our itinerary and we were still go-go-go! I was sad to not be able to see certain places but it just means we have to go back, right?!
Sorry for the novel - back to the trip....First stop - Paris!!
At the SLC airport about to have one LOOONG night on a plane to Paris (but THANK GOODNESS for the direct flight!)
We finally got to Paris at 11am the next day, dropped our bags at the hotel and were off. We decided to do a hop-on-hop-off bus tour since we had no clue where anything was or how to get anywhere and we were extremely jet lagged. Our hotel was close to Trocadero Circle which was perfect since all the buses started there and it was right at the Eiffel Tower. So amazing to see it in person! Oh and PS - get ready for WAY TOO MANY Eiffel Tower pics. I went a little overboard - when in Rome....(Paris), right?!
The first stop we went to was Notre Dome - it was amazing inside!
Another side note - don't mind the crappy picture quality of our entire trip. We only packed backpacks and even though you would think you would want to take your nice camera to take amazing picture of Europe, I opted to not lug it around and have it waste precious backpack space. So most of our pics are iPhone and a small, old point-and-shoot. Oh and asking other tourists who don't speak English to take your picture never turns out quite like you imagine! Anyways, back to the trip.
Our first Paris crepe experience - and it definitely wasn't the last
Love Lock Bridge - and no we didn't spend the million dollars on a stupid lock, but our love can still be locked there without a lock, right?
It was pretty cool to see thousands and thousand of locks and looking through them though!
And so the cheesy Eiffle Tower pics begin!! Sorry not sorry :)
The amazing Arc de Triomphe
We ate an early dinner and went to bed early since we were sooo tired!
We started off the next morning with what else - bread and pastries!
Of course we brought Lou along for the Paris adventures
Fall in Paris!
Such a beautiful city
The first stop of the day was The Louvre - I felt like I was in the Da Vinci Code seeing these triangles :)
Typical tourists with our maps
We aren't super into art and all that so we just hit up Mona and a few other famous things then were off on our way!
The good thing about the hop on buses was not having to deal with figuring out our way around - the bad thing was constantly falling asleep on them thanks to our jet-lag.
Not a bad view for a crepe and Coca Cola Light break
Loved having a rainy day in Paris
Instead of waiting in the long line and paying a trillion dollars for the evevator to the top we opted to take the stairs. All.The.Way.Up. All 1,700 of them. Oh and by the way, I am TERRIFIED of heights, so ya - I was freaking out the entire time.
I made it! And this is definitely a forced smile. I was so scared. From the picture it doesn't look too scary, but I was such a baby and would barely even get close to the fence.
Another forced smile!
The view was definitely amazing and SO worth it!
The Eiffel Tower at night! So dreamy!
We took a night-time cruise down the Seine River - it was amazing and so beautiful
The next day was our last day in Paris and we decided to go to Versailles
This place is truly incredible
Every single room was amazing - I cannot believe that Marie Antoinette lived here!
The grounds! Such a dream
Our first two days in Paris I kept wanting to go to Laduree since I had heard so much about it but we never made it. Luckily there was a Laduree at Versailles and we downed those in about 2 minutes.
We had to catch our train to Switzerland but thanks to those Lauduree macaroons we started an addiction and needed more before we left. Luckily on our way to the train station we stopped the cutest, most quintessential French lady who was eating a macaroon and she told us that the shop with the best macaroons in Paris was just around the corner - and she wasn't lying. So much better than the touristy Laduree!
Packs on and ready for our next adventure!
So sad to leave Paris - it was so amazing and such a fun city. Definitely a whirlwind trying to fit it all in while dealing with jet-lag but luckily we saw and did all that we wanted to do.
We loooved Paris. We actually didn't realize how much we liked it until we left and were looking back at pictures. Those first few days were such a whirlwind because we had no clue where we were, what to do, we were so jet-lagged, etc. So while in Paris, even though we loved it, we weren't DYING over it. But when we left is when we realized how much we really did love it and what an amazing and beautiful city it is. We would love to go back now that we have done all of the tourist stuff and just explore the city more and shop! (We literally did NO shopping on this trip because all we had were backpacks and we didn't want to deal with shipping things home.)
The food in Paris went both ways. The breakfasts, pastries, macaroons and crepes were AMAZING. Just like you would imagine. We loved the little delis for baguette sandwiches for lunch. Dinners were....eh. Kind of weird. Maybe we just didn't know what to order, or we went to the wrong places, but our dinners were not our fav. Fries, weird egg sandwich things, meat. Maybe next time we will have a better idea what to eat for dinner.
Next up - Interlaken, Switzerland.....!