The Paris Girls Trip: Getting moving and Notre Dame!

We woke up early and met in the girl’s apartment to start our day.

We walked down Beauborg towards Notre Dame. We crossed the Seine and took our first official group photo.

As we walked toward Notre Dame the crowds got a bit thicker and then we found ourselves in front of Hotel de Ville (Paris’ City Hall). It was quite picturesque.
 
We continued our walk to Île de la Cité (the Island in the Seine that Notre Dame is located), stopped at the most fabulous patisserie for breakfast and finally approached Notre Dame. I was certainly awestruck at the amazing church.

When we arrived at Notre Dame, we figured out where to get in line to tour the bell tower. There were only a few people in line when we sat down. I walked into the back of the church (there was no line at all to get in) for a moment and knew I needed much more time to admire this church than I had at that present moment.

Courtney, Gay and I went to the “garden” at the rear of the church and I had my first look at it’s flying buttresses. I was beyond words at seeing this historic and religious landmark.

Gay stayed in the garden to people watch and read her book while Courtney and I headed back to sit in line. We got in line almost an hour before the Bell Towers opened. There were only 15 or so people in front of us.

I was SO excited! I was about to check off something on my bucket list (climb Notre Dame’s Bell tower)!! By the time the tower opened the line was hundreds and hundreds of people long…

See Courts in the green dress:

We were in the second or third group of people they allowed into the tower. First you walked up 8 flights to the “office” where we purchased 4 day Museum Passes (HIGHLY RECOMMENDED) and then we headed up 3 flights to the “Nave”. The nave was completely caged in and this was the moment I saw the Eiffel Tower for the first time.

Once we had taken enough gargoyle photos (is that possible?) we walked around a corner and found the bell tower in front of us.

First you enter this small room that feels very rustic. It is all wooden beams with little windows to allow light . I felt medieval and authentic.  As I walked in, Courtney took a photo of me. This is pure excitement, being overwhelmed and awe…

I walked in and announced that I did not want to forget this moment.

Then we climbed up this little, narrow, steep set of stairs to see the
BELLS OF NOTRE DAME!

Clearly, I was beside myself with joy. We walked back down to the Nave and I took a moment or two to appreciate what I had just done.
 

It was quite a moment…as you can tell from this (silly) video:

Silly Lizzie

We took some time to take some fun photos to remember this little excursion.


I love this next picture for two reasons: 1. I love the shadow outline of Notre Dame. 2. Look at the line to get into the ground level church! Go early in the day if you are going.

Then we started our long decent to the ground level of Paris and had some fun on the way:

Once outside, my rejoicing continued… behind Notre Dame…
on the side of Notre Dame…

and in front of Notre Dame…

I was seriously a kid in a candy shop and I had not even taken the full tour of the inside. I LOVED Notre Dame. I could not get enough of the famous, old church. Anytime we had the opportunity to pass back by the church, I begged the group to do so. They sweetly honored my wishes many times.

 

I honestly did not want to leave the Notre Dame Square, but alas, there was more of Paris to see. Our next stop was at the flower markets. If Notre Dame was my nicest experience in Paris, then the flower market was the meanest. Funny how it happens that way. :) I will tell you about that tomorrow.

Love and Hugs, Lizzie

The Paris Girls Trip: Arriving in Paris!

The morning of the trip, I headed over to Courtney’s house where Mr. David, Courtney’s dad, would bring Gay, Courtney and I to the airport. We got to hang with Riley and then head to the airport.

At the airport we met up with QP (Queen Paula/Courtney’s aunt), checked in and headed to Philly!

Once in Philly, we met up with Jennifer, Elisabeth and Margaret. We ate a quick meal and got on the plane to Paris! Since I booked the flight only three weeks before, I was in a different zone/area of the plane than the rest of the girls.

I saw down and had an empty seat next to me with two French speaking ladies on the other side of the middle seats. Until about 2 minutes before the doors were closed I thought I was in the clear. I was going to have an empty seat, but alas it was not meant to be. Right when I thought I was out of the woods, a young guy came to sit next to me. We quickly realized we would not be about to communicate. He only spoke French and I only spoke (speak) English. We tried to communicate briefly with hand signals, but it was no use. We eventually gave up and laughed about it.

The flight was overall smooth and just as we were about to land the Duty Free cart rolled by. The gentleman next to me had a lengthy conversation with the flight attendant (in French – obviously) that ended in him handing her some money and she handed him a black t-shirt. After the cart rolled away, he handed me the t-shirt and made hand motions like “from me to you”. I said “thank you” many times knowing he probably had no idea what I was saying. I wanted to thank him properly so I went and got QP (who speaks French very well) to come and ask him why he bought me a t shirt and to thank him. After some conversation between the two of them, QP says to me, “He said you needed a shirt because it was your first time going to Paris” Evidently, our clumsy conversation was somewhat understood. :)

We deplaned and headed to the luggage carousel. My t-shirt buying friend was there (on his phone) waiting for his luggage and we got this awesome photo where I am actually wearing the shirt he bought me:

This trip already had a great start! I already had a t-shirt! :) We got our luggage and found our driver. I rode in the front seat making small talk with the driver as we approached Paris. We rode through countryside like land with cows, more suburbia areas and finally we arrived in the city. As we got deeper into the city the buildings looked older and smaller. It was a little surreal as we drove through the cities of Paris. The streets are very small and there are SO MANY VESPAS! Those vespa people are crazy.

We arrived at 35 Rue Chapon and unloaded the van.
My room was ready when we arrived, but their apartment would not be ready until 3 or 4 pm that day. (We landed at 9 am and were at the apartment around 10 am.) We were greeted by Sophie’s daughter, Lorraine. She had orange juice a chocolate croissants waiting for us! She was officially our favorite person in the world at that moment. She allowed all the ladies to store their luggage in their living room and let us hang out while some of us took naps and others rested. Lorraine really saved the day.

The next thing on the agenda was lunch at Louise! So we cleaned up and headed out to the streets of Paris. We walked by St. Eustache, a wire covered office building and visited with Nathalie at her work. Nathalie is a true French lady that is dear friends with Ms. Gay. We visited with her at her place of business before heading to lunch.

After a quick visited we headed to Louise. I cannot say enough about how delicious the food was at this small, French restaurant. (See photo of me after lunch…such a happy girl.)
<--------------------------------------------------
We headed to the Palais du Royal and found it quite different than Courtney remembered it (it had been 10 years since she was in Paris last), but it was still fantastic. We did not go inside, but did head to the gardens. This was when I learned that the French and I have different definitions of a garden. The main difference in our definitions is grass. There is no grass in any gardens in Paris (or not that I saw). They all use tiny rocks as ground cover. Check it out…

Images of the Palais du Royal:

On the walk home, I got my first view of the Louvre, an amazing old church, and the Centre Georges Pompidou.

It was quite a scenic day and it was not over yet! We headed back to check into the girl’s apartment. It was then we realized how we would communicate when I was at my place and they were at theirs:

It was perfect! We could speak through the windows. I was one floor below them, but they could easily here me when I called to grab their attention.

The girls unpacked and settled in. When it was dinner time, we headed out to find something to compare with lunch’s deliciousness. We ended up at Café Beauborg. It was right next to the Pompidou Center.

After dinner, many of us had our first crepe sucre and IT WAS DELICIOUS! We headed back to the hotel, had some girl time and went to bed early to prepare for our next big day. Right before I headed back to my place, it started raining. The girls fitted my feet with plastic bags and I made noise the whole way home. :)

Overall, it was a fabulous first day. I loved what I saw of my travel mates and Paris. I knew it was going to be an amazing trip.

FITBIT UPDATE: 10,265 steps, 24 flights of stairs and 4.22 miles walked. (Notes: 1. this was the lowest number of steps this trip except the day we flew out. 2. I changed my fitbit to Paris time so I knew it would be accurate.)

Love and Hugs, Lizzie