So once again we were in Paris, but this time with my family. My parents, brother and his wife were over for my cousin’s wedding in Germany a week later. But before that, we decided to spend a week travelling around Europe.

To start, we were only in Paris for one whole day so it was a whirlwind tour! In the morning, Liz and I dropped my parents off at the Louvre and since we had seen the Louvre last time, we went to the Musee d’Orsay instead.

Musee d’Orsay is housed in an old railway terminal, and it still has 3 original clocks both inside and out. Neat! No photos of the artwork allowed though – but the Van Gogh artworks were great. Starry Night is very cool!

Musee d'Orsay - Paris

Musee d'Orsay - Paris

On the way back we stumbled over a bridge with one or two locks attached to it… It’s nicknamed Lovers bridge, where couples would place lovelocks with their names written.

Padlocks on Pont des Arts bridge in Paris

Padlocks on Pont des Arts bridge in Paris

Padlocks on Pont des Arts bridge in Paris

Once we regrouped we decided to have some lunch, which we found in a local market, NOM.

Croissant in Paris

We then headed to the Arc de Triomphe, going via the Tuilleries Gardens, past the Luxor Obelix and up the along the Champs Elysees. Big walk!

Arc de Triomphe du Carrousel - Paris

Tuileries Gardens - Paris Luxor Obelisk - Paris

Champs Elysees - Paris

From there, we headed toward the Eiffel tower…

Eiffel Tower - Paris

…where we persuaded my parents that we had to do a jumping shot. So we leapt!

Eiffel Tower - Paris

From there our trek took us to the golden roof of Les Invalides, which was built as a hospital and retirement home for war veterans in 1676. Napoleon was buried under the dome in 1840.

Les Invalides - Paris

We got to our final stop, Notre Dame, near the end of the day but it was well worth it. We were too tired to go inside after our huge walk around the city (yes, we walked to all those places in 1 day!)

Notre Dame - Paris

To finish up Paris we had a feast at a local restaurant which was great! French wine, French beer…

Davidsons (and a Harte) in Paris

And even French food – snails! (They tasted like garlic and butter, so quite nice!)

Parisian snails

A great start to our European tour, the next day we were off to Belgium.

But that’s the next post…

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