Wedding Blog

For our second day in Paris, I decided to take the Dude to a few of my favorite Parisian locales from when I was there six years ago. Since he didn’t care about museums, I planned a day packed with as many iconic Paris sites as possible. We started off the day with a Metro ride to Champs-Elysees, the gorgeous tree-lined shopping district, at the end of which the Arc de Triumph stands proudly in the center of the biggest roundabout I’ve ever seen. Unfortunately I don’t have any photos, since we still hadn’t found a charger for our camera.

We did some shopping along the avenue—I bought tights and a pair of high top sneaker/boot thingies because I was FREEZING. We popped into an electronics store and found a universal charger that we were able to use later that night to charge the camera battery—score! We had some interesting pizza in a cafe, pepperoni with a fried egg on top! Finally, we stopped at Laduree for some macarons.

Please pardon my dorkiness in this video.

After admiring the Arc de Triumph some more, we jumped back on the Metro and headed to Montmarte, which is sort of an artists’ district. We walked around the area where all of the painters and sketch artists hang out with their easels. This is the part of Paris where you are most likely to see people wearing berets! We got to the base of the steps leading up to the Sacre Coeur, right next to the ornate carousel (which the Dude recognized from Amelie!). I wanted to check out the Dali museum, so we headed there first, not realizing that the streets we were taking were actually taking us up the back way to the Sacre Coeur, one of the most gorgeous cathedrals in the world.

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After the museum, we got some crepes and ate them on the steps of the Sacre Coeur. Outside, the sun was warm and bright, children shouted, and some guy sang Oasis covers amplified with a microphone. Then we stepped into the church and it took our breath away. Inside it was cool, dark, and peaceful. The ceiling soared above our heads, and we couldn’t help but feel overwhelmed. We’re not religious people, but being inside this magnificent cathedral made me feel connected to Christianity (and other, even more ancient religions) in a weird way.

At this point, we were exhausted, so we headed back to the hotel to take a quick nap before the evening we had planned. The Dude captured this gorgeous sunset from the balcony while I slept.

We headed back to the Metro to catch some of my favorite sites by night. There’s a reason Paris is known as the City of Lights, people! First we headed to the Louvre—the Dude was especially interested in seeing the glass pyramids at the entrance. It was difficult to take pictures, but we got a couple.

You guys better get used to this flannel I’m wearing—it’s the only cover-up I brought!

Then we crossed over the Seine to head towards Notre Dame.

One of my favorite pictures from the whole trip!

Before we got there, we stopped in at a random bar we found on a side street for a drink. I had a Carlsberg and the Dude had some Bailey’s on ice. When the bartender brought us our drinks, he switched them, assuming that the woman would’ve ordered the Bailey’s. The bar was cool and a bit divey. It reminded us of Austin, so we felt at home.

Then, Notre Dame by night. I wish we could’ve gone inside, but it’s so gorgeous all lit up.

From here, we headed back to the Metro stop near our hotel to find a cafe for dinner. We had an amazing late dinner, where I tried escargot. It’s so delicious! I can’t believe I was a little afraid of it. After dinner, we tried to head to the Eiffel Tower to see it sparkle, like it does at 9PM and 1AM every night. We realized after we paid our check that we only had about 15 minutes to get there. So, we ran! We hauled ass across the dark, windy streets to try to get a good view of the tower all dazzling. As we were running, we saw the tip of the tower over some buildings as it started to flash—then we rounded a corner, and just as we got a full-on view, the tower went dark. We were a little disappointed but resolved to make it the next night.

I’ll leave you guys with a video of me and the Dude underground at one of the Metro stops.