After a little more than two blissfully relaxing days in Avignon, Chad and I prepared for our next, and sadly, final, leg of our European tour....PARIS!
Train tickets purchased, and bags RE-PACKED (where the HELL did ALL this stuff COME FROM?!?! ;), we headed back to the Avignon Centre train station to catch our ride.
Paris, here we come!
Fancy Schmancy in first class :)
Beautiful Scenery...
A few hours later.. Chaos
But we finally made it to our cute little hotel, The New Orient in the heart of the 8th district
With an amazing view!
Even the STAIRS had charm.. :)
After settling in for a few minutes.. we decided to take a little walk to see what our surroundings had in store for us. :)
Cute little street.. with food vendors everywhere..
We decided to walk towards the Seine River..
The architecture all around was stunning :)
La Madeleine Catholic Church
So I have to admit that I was beyond EXCITED to coincidentally run into Laduree. Like, school girl giddy , kind of excited. :) In our research of Paris, Laduree was undoubtably a MUST VISIT (for me) while in Paris. Chad, being the family foodie, surprisingly, had no idea about Laduree...but was QUICKLY sold after just one bite. :) THE BEST macaroons you could ever imagine having. Everything about these tiny little things made you feel special. From the packaging to the interior decor...it was all lovely. :)
Soooooo sooooo PRETTY!!
It took everything we had not to get one of EVERYTHING!!
But we were good and just walked away with a sampling of macaroons :)
Then lo and behold.. look what we saw NEXT!! :)
The Eiffel Tower at sunset.. HURRY CHAD!! Lets GO!!!
The Seine.. looking off towards Notre Dame (in the distance)..
Making our way towards the Eiffel Tower..
Getting closer ..
So much more GRAND than I ever expected it to be..
We caught it at just the right time..
Every hour (for about ten minutes) the Eiffel Tower lights up like a christmas tree with millions of sparkling lights!! Truly AWESOME!!
What a wonderful first day in Paris!
