Paris {day three}

Our third day in Paris was still pretty overcast, so we planned to spend a majority of the day at the Louvre. We got four-day Museum Passes, which I would highly recommend (they also come in 2-day and 6-day passes). It covered entrance fees for almost everything we wanted to see, so we saved a lot of money and got to skip ahead of the line everywhere. We got up early and were in line before the Louvre even opened.

It was massive and had a ton of beautiful paintings and sculptures that we absolutely loved. It was almost too big - we had picked out a few exhibits that we really wanted to see, focused on those, and kinda skimmed over everything else so we could see it but didn't stop to read all the signs and such.

Ramses and the Victory of Samothrace

1) Venus de Milo, 2) The Code of Hammurabi, 3) Athena

 

Everyone had told us that the Mona Lisa was so much smaller than they had expected. So we thought it was going to be real tiny, and it ended up actually being a bit bigger than we were expecting! For reference, according to google, the actual dimensions are 2'6" x 1'9".

We saw several painters who were replicating other paintings within the museum, as well as students who were sketching in notepads. I couldn't imagine being able to do that at all, much less with so many people walking around and stopping to watch.

There were amazing views of the city all throughout the museum's windows. Some of my favorite shots:

Ile de Cite

The Seine River

The Louvre Courtyard

Tuileries Garden

The Louvre Courtyard

We were over it by lunch time, and as you can see from the last picture it had finally cleared up outside. So we decided to venture out since we had a whole free afternoon ahead of us. From there, we walked along the river to the Sainte-Chapelle.

The first floor is a beautiful little chapel.

We almost didn't go up to the second floor but we were so glad we did. It was an absolutely gorgeous church. The stained glass windows were stunning!

 The sky was pretty crazy - just 30 minutes later when we left it was nice and blue again.

The Pont de l'Archêvché was just a few minutes away, so we did our love lock since we had forgotten it the day before. Beware, there is also a fake love lock bridge on the Ponts des Arts, just up the river from the Ile de Cite.

That evening, we randomly stumbled upon Le Grand Colbert for dinner. As we were walking in, we saw a poster for the movie Something's Gotta Give, which prompted a heated discussion over the next few days on whether or not the restaurant was actually the one they went to in the movie. There were several other movie posters inside, so we weren't sure whether they were random movies shot in Paris or if they were all related to the restaurant. We actually own the movie, so we watched it when we got back home - turns out it was the restaurant in the movie, and we sat in the exact same seats as Diane Keaton and Jack Nicholson. Pretty funny! Had we known that, we definitely would have taken a picture, but this was all I got. 

braised beef - delicious!!

Paris {Valentine's Day}

Since we had a whole week in Paris, we spread out our plans so that we did a little sightseeing each day and still had plenty of time to relax and enjoy the city. Our second day was really rainy and gloomy, so we didn't do a whole lot. We walked to the Notre Dame cathedral first thing in the morning, and spent the rest of the day café-hopping to stay out of the rain.

Side story...the bridge in the pictures above and below is the Pont de l'Archêvché, which is covered in padlocks, aka "love locks". Couples write their names on the padlocks, lock them to the bridge, and throw the key in the river, signifying that their love will last forever. Totally cheesy, and typically not our thing, but we figured it would be a good Valentine's Day activity. We bought a lock back at home (which Bo made me return the original one I got because it wasn't big enough...) and brought it with us. And as soon as we got to the bridge we realized we left it in the hotel room. Fail. Soooo we had to come back the next day....

 

We had a late lunch at La Chaumiere. First of many authentic French onion soups, which was amazing and perfect on a cold, rainy day. Along with some mulled wine and cheese, of course :)

And for dessert, we stopped into Glacier Berthillon for some ice cream. Nowhere near as amazing as gelato in Italy, but I was happy nonetheless.

From there we went to Chez Caldé, a cute café where they spoke limited English - we loved it! We stayed there for a while just reading and sipping on various wines.

We had dinner that evening at Le Pré Aux Clercs. I will admit this was not our first (or second or third) choice. We didn't make dinner reservations since we weren't sure where we were going to end up that evening, and most places had extraordinarily over-priced pre fixe menus for the holiday. We were hungry, so we settled - not that anything we had was bad, it just wasn't really that good either. So, limited food pictures since the wine and meats were our favorites.

After dinner we went to a jazz club (creatively named "Jazz Club"), which was awesome. Very romantic and fun - totally made up for a lackluster dinner.

To end the evening, we walked along the Seine back to our hotel - thankfully the rain had finally let up and we got to enjoy this beautiful view. Love, love, love Paris!!