Early, so early in the morning. We awoke to catch our ride on the Eurostar to Paris. At 4:00 am we packed up our things and hired a cab to take us over to St. Pancras station. The Eurostar is fast and after only two hours of nearly flying through British and French countryside, and a trip through the underwater Chunnel, we arrived safely in the Gare du Nord.

Our hotel was just a brisk walk from the station and in stark contrast to the last hotel being so modern, this hotel was an old Parisian building turned into a hotel. Not without it’s own charm our room was four crooked flights of stairs up looking out only to the building across the way.

Once we had everything settled we decided to buy a quick Croissant at one of the local Patisseries, and purchase some Metro passes to visit some of the more charming areas of the city.

First stop was Notre Dame with it’s dizzyingly high ceilings, and impressive stained glass windows. There was a traditional catholic mass bring performed as we walked through, the sound of alternating French and Latin chants reverberating off of the chamber walls.

After we walked through an open air flower/greenhouse market on the way back to the metro, the fragrances of varies flowers and herbs were pleasant and relaxing in the warmth of the morning sun.

Last time I had been in Paris, we completely skipped the Eiffel tower so we made a point of seeing it this time. The metro is quite extensive with hundreds o stops and dozens of tunnels, some deep underground and some elevated above the surface. It was a challenge to make it over to the tower, but a worth adventure within it self. The tower itself is quite imposing and truly a sight to behold, despite being a “temporary” building created for the 1889 World’s Fair. The lines were too long to get to the top (several hours at least) so we took are fill of the edifice from the ground, then walked over and had lunch at a nearby restaurant (no silly bans on foie gras around here)

We made our way back to the hotel for a brief respite then headed over to the Arc de Triumph, this monument we did ascend, which has fantastic views of the surrounding city, the Louve, the Champs Élysées and yes even the Eiffel tower. We watched the sunset over Paris, and the Eiffel tower light up, before strolling down the Champs Élysées to find dinner (fantastic shopping here had it not been so late)

*UPDATE* I made a huge mistake. Looking at the paper work last night, I learned I accidentally scheduled our train to Munich for the wrong day, ie our train left 4 hours ago. Please pray I can get this all sorted out.

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