Paris - Day 3

Today started just like day 2 - with espresso and pain au chocolat,  then we hopped the metro to the Orsay Museum. You can't really tell from the picture but this metro line has double decker trains which I thought was pretty cool!

We were all excited to see the collection of impressionism and realism at Orsay and it did not disappoint. Photography inside the museum is not allowed and I was admiring the work too much to try to break the rules so I don't have any pictures. I did take a picture of the building though.

The museum is in an old metro station so the architecture was pretty cool too. If you are an art lover you must go to Orsay. Now. It was amazing. Manet, Monet, Degas, Renoir,  Cézanne, Gauguin, and Van Gough. Oh the Van Gough. Just phenomenal. We were only planning on spending the morning here but ended up staying almost 7 hours, we couldn't peel ourselves way!


We finally headed over to the Eiffel Tower. At night, every hour at the top of the hour the eiffel tower has a "light show" in which the main lights turn down and smaller lights all over the tower sparkle on and off randomly for a couple minutes. I had a lot of fun trying to capture this in a picture and I think I did a pretty decent job. I took way too many pictures of the Eiffel Tower, maybe I was compensating for not being able to capture Orsay? No matter what, here are some of my favorites. 

You can't see Dale and I that good, but I promise we are there!

Sick of the Eiffel Tower yet? Ok, I'll stop. I'm pretty sure everyone knows what it looks like anyway. Gabi and her cousin, Christian, wanted to go to the top of the Eiffel Tower but Dale and I weren't that interested so while they traveled upwards, Dale and I walked around the neighborhood. We saw the Parc du Champs de Mars and Palais de Chaillot which are parks with gardens and statues. Then we stopped to warm up and got a crepe - we had to, we were in France after all! We opted for the traditional chocolate but got a little fancy with whipped creme and almonds on top. Yummy!

I also got a macaron at a bakery to save for later. And now I'm officially obsessed with macarons. They are devine. Try one! So good! Mine got smashed on the journey home so I don't have a picture of it but here's a recipe if you are up to trying to make them (seems hard to me though!) Then we met up with Gabi and Christian for dinner and I finally remembered to take a group picture.

Christian is from Barcelona, Spain and doesn't speak English so I had to try my best to remember Spanish, while speaking English to Gabi and Dale, in France where they speak French, and I've been practicing Swedish. My brain was mush from all the languages! But Christian was very nice and tried to communicate with me even though my Spanish is terrible.

After dinner we went to bed because Dale and I had to get up early to catch our flight back :( But everything went smoothly and before we knew it we were back in cold, but beautiful Sweden. 

Maybe it's not so sad to be back! 

So, that concludes trip 1 within Europe (which we don't get stamps in our passports for by the way, ba-hum-bug!) We both really liked Paris and although our days were packed, and there is certainly more to see, I have to say, I think we hit all the "must see" places and there is nothing I feel like I have to return to see. My personal favorite was Orsay, but I bet you could already tell that. If you've been what's your favorite? If you've never been, what would you want to see most?

Love Always,

Matilda